Santiago: The camera captures a meteor traveling through the night sky over Santiago, the capital of Chile. Researchers from the University of Concepcion confirmed that the phenomenon recorded on July 7 was a small mass of burning rock as it entered Earth’s atmosphere, reports the BBC.
The meteor crossed the sky and opened a huge spotlight on the city of Santiago. According to local media, citing authorities, the meteorite disintegrated into several pieces before disappearing in the Andes region.
Brazilian media TNH1 reported that residents of the city heard the sound of the meteor passing through the atmosphere as if it were a splash of thunder. Separately, astronomer Juan Carlos Bumen, of the Chilean Astronomy Foundation, stated that the meteorite that crossed Santiago was called “T12.cl.”.
Beamen explains that the flash fires because upon entering the atmosphere even “rocks, or small stones, due to friction with air, burn and sparkle.” “We are talking about a speed of 10,000 kilometers per hour,” he added.
Meanwhile, a meteor appeared in Chile on the same day that a fireball like a burning meteor appeared in the sky over Wellington, New Zealand. According to Reuters, witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion and seeing flashes of light as the object passed.
Meteorites descending from the atmosphere at high speed over urban areas are rare, said Alan Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Canterbury’s Mount John Observatory. “It’s a very bright beam, so it must be quite a large object,” he went on to describe the meteor. Gilmore also reported that the explosion that people heard indicated that the meteorite came within 60 km of Earth.
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