Bright fireballs over Spain and Iowa/Illinois

Two bright fireballs occured on July 9, a few tens of minutes apart, over different regions of the world. The first was widely observed from the United States (mainly Iowa and Illinois) at 01h40 UT and the second was filmed over Spain and the Mediterranean Sea, at 03h13 UT.

More than 600 witnesses, mainly located from locations South-East of the Great Lakes (Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin) reported their observation of the July 9, 01h40 UT fireball that flew over Iowa and Illinois. The entry angle was very small relative to the horizontal, indicating a potential earthgrazing meteoroid, but it seems it may have entered deep into the atmosphere anyway, as some witnesses reported a fragmentation. This also explains the very long horizontal projected path, which crosses more than 300 km, from central Iowa (55 km North-West from Des Moines) to end 15 km South-East of Burlington, close to the Iowa/Illinois border, according to automatic analysis of visual witnesses. The fireball was observed in bright twilight, with a very long apparent path.

Here are some videos of the event:

The second fireball was recorded less than 90 minutes after, but above Spain and the Mediterranean Sea. According to Jose M. Madiedo (IMO PoC in Spain) : “This meteor event was recorded over Andalusia and the Mediterranean Sea on 9 July 2018 at 5:13 local time (3:13 universal time). The sporadic fireball was produced by a fragment from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 65 000 km/h. The luminous phase began at an altitude of around 89 km over the province of Almería, and ended at a height of about 31 km over the Sea. The analysis of its atmospheric path shows that this was a potential meteorite-producing event. The meteorite would have fallen into the sea, but with a small mass of just a few grams. The event 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 video shows, among other details about the atmospheric path, footage of the luminous phase of this event as recorded from the several of the above-mentioned meteor-observing stations.”