A large fireball crossed the night sky of Minas Gerais (MG), Brazil on the January 14, and was recorded in at least 4 brazilian states. The reports, coming mainly from Minas Gerais state, suggest that the fireball crossed the sky from the west to east and lit up the night for a few seconds. In addition to several surveillance cameras, the meteor’s passage through the atmosphere was recorded by BRAMON and Clima ao Vivo cameras in Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Goiás and the Federal District. Check out the images below::

According to BRAMON, the Brazilian Meteor Observation Network, the phenomenon that occurred at 23:53 UT this Friday, January 14, is a bolide, that is, a very bright meteor. Meteors are luminous phenomena that occur when a piece of space rock passes through the Earth’s atmosphere. As these objects travel at very high speeds, they hit our atmosphere, compressing and heating the gases in front of them. This heating creates a bubble of plasma that glows brightly around the rock.

After analyzing the videos, the BRAMON concluded that the space rock hit the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle of 38.6°, in relation to the ground, and began to shine at 86.6 km height above the rural area of ​​Uberlândia. It continued at 43,700 km/h, traveling 109.3 km in 9.0 seconds, and disappeared at 18.3 km height, between the municipalities of Perdizes and Araxá, MG. Some reports coming from this area, called Triângulo Mineiro, are from people who reported hearing explosion noise and feeling walls and windows shaking. This is a strong indication that this fireball may have left meteorites, which are the fragments of space rock that resisted the atmospheric passage and reached the ground.

Meteor’s trajectory through atmosphera – Credits: BRAMON

The noise and tremors are effects of the shock wave generated when the meteor hits the lowest and densest layers of the atmosphere, when the air resistance is so high that it ends up fragmenting the rock.

BRAMON is still working on the calculations to determine the size of the object and the area of dispersion of possible meteorites. The network asks those who have records or who have observed the meteor’s passage, to send their reports through the form at bramon.imo.net.

As soon as there are updates to this data, we will inform you here.