There are dozens of videos and photos on social media showing a large flash of light over Portugal last night. It’s a meteorite, also called a shooting star. The ball of light was mainly visible in Portugal, but the fireball was also seen in France and Spain.
The sky over Portugal briefly turned blue. The meteor is best seen in the north of the country, but the flash of light was also visible in the southern parts and in Lisbon.
Reports came that the meteorite may have fallen in central Portugal, but after the local fire brigade examined the entire area, nothing was found.
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Meteorite and meteorite
If a piece of debris does not completely burn through the atmosphere and a piece of it falls to Earth, it is called a meteorite. This is not the case now. The rock burned up in the atmosphere, so this was a meteorite.
People who saw the flash of light on social media responded enthusiastically. “This is crazy,” one Twitter user said.
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blue light
“It’s a somewhat larger piece than the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,” says Felix Bitonville, an astronomer at Leiden University. According to Bitonville, the blue color is determined by the composition of the debris. “Every substance you heat has a colour. The same goes for a fireball. What’s unique is that the light from this meteor was very bright. This happens about once a year in the Netherlands.”
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The fireball was also seen in the Spanish city of Cadiz:
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