Two meteors lit up the Italian skies in the night between 23 and 24 May: the first bolide was sighted from Tuscany to Veneto, while the second flew over Sardinia and Corsica. Their passage was documented by the instruments of Prisma, the First Italian Network for the Study of Meteors and the Atmosphere of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
The first fireball was filmed by 10 Prisma cameras, those of Pino Torinese, Rovigo, Piacenza, Felizzano, Cecima, Merate, Savignano, Montelupo Fiorentino, Chianti and Ravenna. The object was imaged starting from an altitude of 75 kilometers, when it had a speed of 15.8 kilometers per second, and was extinguished at 28 kilometers, with a speed of about 8 kilometers per second. The event lasted approximately 6 seconds. “The trajectory projected onto the ground – explain the Prisma experts – indicates a direction of fall from south to north, starting near the village of Miscoso (Appennino Reggiano) and ending near San Secondo Parmense, in the middle of the Po Valley”.
The second fireball was taken by the two Prisma cameras from Sardinia, Sardinia Radio Telescope and Gennargentu, plus a Fripon camera from Corsica. “The image taken from the Gennargentu camera is truly spectacular and shows the trail of the fireball crossing the whole sky, passing almost to the zenith”, underline the experts. The bolide was resumed starting from an altitude of 85 kilometers, when it had a speed of about 20.5 kilometers per second, and was extinguished at 44 kilometers with a speed of 16 kilometers per second, with a duration of almost 8 seconds. Given the high final velocity, the entire meteoroid was destroyed in the re-entry phase. Projecting the trajectory on the ground, it moved from north-east to south-west, with its starting point on the Tyrrhenian Sea and its final point near Villanova Tulo, in the Sarcidano area.
An asteroid origin is assumed for both bolides due to their orbit, typical of an Apollo asteroid, with aphelion just beyond the orbit of Mars and perihelion close to the orbit of Venus.
Source: Ansa
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