A huge bolide was seen in several cities in Bahia on the night of October 26, 2020. Several reports were sent through BRAMON’s social media and to AMS bolide reporting tool. Ituberá residents report seeing the fireball in the sky and, a few minutes later, heard a loud explosion noise. The bolide was also recorded in 2 Clima ao Vivo cameras in Ipirá and Itaberaba in Bahia, Brazil. Check out the video:

Recurrence

Despite luminous meteors like this being something rare, this is the second time that Bahia has witnessed a similar phenomenon in less than 10 days. The previous week, at 9:54 pm on October 16, a beautiful meteor was seen in cities in the north of the state and was also recorded by Clima ao Vivo cameras (check out the video below). Although both are very similar meteors and occurred at similar times, there is no relationship between them. In addition, the meteor of the 16th disintegrated completely in the upper atmosphere and did not show an “explosion” at the end. So, technically, it is called a fireball.

Preliminary trajectory

From the analysis of the videos, BRAMON calculated the preliminary trajectory of the bolide seen in Bahia on the 26th. It reached the atmosphere at 21:29 (00:29 UT) at an angle of 71.8 degrees related to the ground. It began to shine approximately 85 km height, east of Ituberá and continued for 5.2 seconds in a southwest direction at a speed of 48900 km/h (13.6 km/s), until its final explosion at about 18 km height to the west of the municipality of Camamu, in Bahia.

Preliminary trajectory – Credits: BRAMON

Meteorites

BRAMON is still working on mass estimates and trajectory refinement to determine whether there is a possibility of meteorites on the ground and, if so, the area where they can be found. However, everything suggests that the bolide probably left meteorites in the rural area of the municipality of Camamu. As the data is refined, this post will be updated.