A very bright, colorful and explosive meteor was seen in the early hours of Wednesday (3), in the skies of cities in the interior of São Paulo and the south of Minas Gerais.
The glow caught the attention of residents and was recorded by security and monitoring cameras. According to the Brazilian Asteroid Monitoring Network (Bramon, Brazilian Meteor Observation Network), what you see in the images is a meteor that took longer to break up, and therefore arrived at a shorter distance from Earth.
As he approached, the friction increased and he burst into flames. Now, experts are trying to pinpoint where pieces of the object, called meteorites, may have landed. The hypothesis is that they may have reached the soil in the region of the cities of Aguaí (SP), Mogi Mirim (SP) and Poços de Caldas (MG).
According to camera records and reports from observers at the Pico dos Dias Observatory, in Brazópolis (MG), the bolide would have had a magnitude of -8 at an altitude of 100 kilometers, when it started descending followed by a strong flash.
To better understand the luminosity of this meteor, professor at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of São Paulo Alex Carciofi explains that, historically, we follow a magnitude scale created in Ancient Greece by the astronomer Hipparchus. According to this metric, the lower the rating, the higher the apparent brightness.
”The Sun, for example, has magnitude of -22 and Venus, which is a planet with brightness visible here from Earth, from -1 to -2. So, the meteor recorded this morning with magnitude -8 is very, very bright”, quotes the astronomer.
Meteor Showers in August
The Caelidas meteor shower will last until August 15th and will have greater intensity this Friday (5th). It has been observed throughout Brazil since July 25, always between midnight and dawn.
In general, meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 44.5 kilometers per second (km/s).
According to the teacher. Gabriel Hickel from the Federal University of Itajubá, the August rain of the Caelidas was first determined by studies by Bramon, which also works with meteor monitoring.
The Bramon discovery took place in 2017 and was recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a body that coordinates astronomical nomenclatures, discoveries and standards around the world.
Another meteor shower expected for this month is the well-known Perseids, which peaks in the early hours of August 11 and 12.
(*With information from Agência Brasil)
Source: CNN Brasil
