There are dozens of movies and pictures on social media of a giant flash of sunshine over Portugal final night time. It’s a meteor, additionally known as a capturing star. The ball of sunshine was primarily seen in Portugal, however the fireball was additionally noticed in France and Spain.
The sky above Portugal briefly turned blue. The meteor was finest seen within the north of the nation, however the flash of sunshine was additionally clearly seen within the southern components and in Lisbon.
Stories got here in that the meteor could have landed in central Portugal, however after the native fireplace brigade checked your complete space, nothing was discovered.
Meteor and meteorite
If a bit of particles doesn’t burn fully via the environment and a bit falls to Earth, it’s known as a meteorite. That isn’t the case now. The boulder burned up within the environment, so this was a meteor.
Individuals who noticed the flash of sunshine on social media responded enthusiastically. “That is insane,” stated one Twitter person.
Blue mild
“It’s a considerably bigger chunk from the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,” says Felix Bettonvil, an astronomer at Leiden College. Based on Bettonvil, the blue shade is set by the composition of the particles. “Each substance that you just warmth has a shade. It’s the identical with a fireball. It’s fairly distinctive that the sunshine from this meteorite was so vivid. This occurs about yearly within the Netherlands.”
The fireball was additionally seen within the Spanish metropolis of Cádiz: