Camera in Slovakia captures bright meteor passing over Czechia

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Astronomers of the Slovak Central Observatory in Hurbanovo photographed a falling meteor in mid-April.

The so-called bolide - a very bright meteor - was captured by the camera of the AllSky7 observation network on April 17 at 21:47 CEST. Astronomer Peter Dolinský from the Hurbanovo observatory confirmed this.

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The bolide flew over northern Moravia, but was also seen in the sky in western Slovakia.

According to Pavel Spurný from the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Ondřejov, it lit up 88 kilometres above the earth's surface and went out at an altitude of 34 kilometres.

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System of seven cameras

Traditionally, meteors were visually observed. With the advent of video technology, astronomers began to use video cameras.

The Slovak Central Observatory in Hurbanovo has several video cameras at its disposal; they use the German AllSky7 system with seven cameras to observe objects in the sky.

"The cameras capture the entire sky," explains Dolinský.

"You can only get so much data from using one camera. You can determine the brightness, time and place of the flyby. But the position in space cannot be determined, since we don't know how far the object flew," he continues.

He compares it to the motion of an airplane.

"If it flies low, it flies past you very quickly. But if it is several kilometres high, its flight appears slow."

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Astronomers therefore use observation from several stations. "Thus, the distance of the object can be determined by triangulation. Subsequently, the speed, path, deceleration and density of the meteor can be determined. If we know the distance, brightness and speed, the approximate mass of the body can also be determined," Peter Dolinský describes the calculations.

Seldom lands

A bolide occurs when a space body penetrates the atmosphere at a high speed. Due to friction, the body heats up and starts to evaporate and disperse.

"As it heats up, it glows. This is actually a meteor phenomenon. In the vast majority of cases, the meteor disappears in the atmosphere. It tends to disintegrate into fine dust that slowly falls to the ground," says Dolinský.

However, if the body is sufficiently massive and compact, part of it will "survive" the flight through the atmosphere and fall to the earth's surface as a meteorite. Then it can be physically found on the ground. However, according to the astronomer, this is a very rare phenomenon.

The brightness of a meteor strongly depends on its mass. "If it's about as bright as a full moon, it can be assumed that something will definitely hit the ground. If it's very bright, but weaker than a full moon, probably nothing will hit the ground. That was also the case with this meteor."

According to Spurný, the bolide that flew over Moravia weighed about 700 grams when it entered the atmosphere. However, most bolides weigh dozens of grams.

"These smaller bodies disintegrate at a height of about 20 to 30 kilometres above the surface of the earth. Then they fall at a speed of a few hundred kilometres per hour. They might be able to break a window upon impact, but nothing serious would probably happen. The impact of larger pieces weighing a hundred grams or more could be bad even at a lower speed. But even that would be insufficient to create a crater," says Dolinský.

©My Nové Zámky