Bright fireballs over China, Hungaria and Mediterranean sea

Parallel to the Bostwanian event linked to the atmospheric entry of asteroid 2018 LA,very bright fireballs lit up the sky during the last weeks. Here is a summary for a few of them.

On June 1st, around 13h 30min UT, a very bright fireball was observed and filmed over Southern China.

After the meteor was observed, a meteorite was recovered after it hit the roof of a house in Manluncun (Menghai County), as well as some others, in the same village, a few hours later.

Another fireball was recorded over the Mediterranean Sea on May 23, 2018 at 1:37 local time (23:37 UT on May 22). According to Prof. Dr. Jose Maria Madiedo (University of Huelva), the event was produced by a fragment from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 90 000 km/h. The fireball began at an altitude of around 89 km over the sea, and ended at a height of about 19 km. The analysis of its atmospheric path shows that this was a meteorite-producing event. The meteorite would have fallen into the sea. The fireball was recorded by the meteor observing stations operated by the SMART Project (University of Huelva) from the astronomical observatories of Calar Alto, La Sagra, La Hita and Sevilla.

The preliminary analysis of this event shows that the initial (pre-atmospheric) mass of the meteoroid was of about 1,500 kg. The terminal mass that fell into the sea as a meteorite was of around 10 kg.

This video shows, among other details about the atmospheric path, footage of the luminous phase of this event as recorded from the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory:

Last, another fireball was reported by more than 50 witnesses on April 8, 18h 46 UT, over Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Southern Germany, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Serbia. It was also filmed and photographed.