A fireball crossed the sky over Spain last night at 22.10h and was picked up by the Sierra Nevada astronomic obervatory, La Sagra.

Travelling at 61,000kph, arguably faster than Superman with diahorrea, entering the atmosphere above us at 85 kilometres up above Lugo in Galicia, crossing Spain and going on its merry way at 87 kilometres out over the Mediterranean.

It was visible for about a minute, whereas asteroids on a fiery mission normally last seconds.

Dr José María Maiedo, at the Instituto Andaluz de Astrofísica, explained that the fireball had been picked up by the Red de Bólidos y Meteoros del Suroeste de Europa, as part of the SMART project.

“It was a glancing fireball: a fireball produced by a space rock hitting the atmosphere at a tangent, keeping almost parallel with the surface”,· he explained, adding, “In this peculiar case the rock was not destroyed but left the atmosphere and continued in orbit around the Sun.”

In other words, as it was travelling in a straight line its height decreased and then increase again due to the Earth’s curvature.

(News: Spain)