Meteor lights up RS sky and could be the biggest since 2020 – 10/31/2023 – Science

Gauchos were surprised by a rare phenomenon on Monday night (30). At 11:15 pm, a fireball-type meteor crossed the sky of Rio Grande do Sul.

Although the fall of meteors is common, the “fireball” type, which crosses the sky in combustion without exploding along the way, usually occurs about twice a year in the state, but rarely with such luminosity.

The fall of the bolide – a term used by astronomy to define exceptionally bright meteors entering the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed – was recorded by one of the cameras at the Bate-Papo Astronomical Observatory, located in Tecnoparque de Santa Maria (RS), central region of the state.

It is estimated that what remained of the meteor hit the ground in the campaign region, west of Rio Grande do Sul.

According to an interview with the executive director of Bate-Papo Astronomico, Fabrício Colvero, to the newspaper Diário de Santa Maria, the phenomenon was the strongest recorded since the creation of the project in 2019. According to the expert, the luminosity was captured even by cameras that they did not point to the location of the meteor, indicating that the sky was completely lit up.

After seeing the images, engineer Carlos Fernando Jung, owner of the Heller & Jung Space Observatory and scientific director of the Southern region of the Brazilian Meteor Observation Network, estimates that the meteor rivals in dimensions the bolide that crossed the sky of Caxias do Sul , in the Serra Gaúcha, on October 1, 2020, with luminosity greater than that of the Moon.

At the time, equipment at the observatory concluded that the meteor was 1.7 meters long, the largest recorded in the state since 2016. As the fall on the 30th was not recorded by the equipment capable of measuring the size of the bolide, Jung is waiting for more records from other observers and/or security cameras to estimate the size of the meteor that illuminated Santa Maria.

The speed allows us to confirm that it is not a re-entry into the atmosphere, like a falling satellite, for example.

Regardless of the appearance and the shock wave it produces, causing the sensation of an explosion in those on the ground, the fall of the meteor poses no risk to the population.