A brilliant yellow-green fireball crossed the skies of central – northern Italy at around 9.30pm on Tuesday 4 June 2024. We have received several reports of sightings. Let’s try to understand what it was about.
The bright trail was certainly caused by the passage of a meteorite relatively close to our planet. The fiery object (called fireball) it lit up the skies for several seconds, from 2 to 4, according to the testimonies of several people. It then disintegrated completely upon contact with the atmosphere. The object was described as greenish in colour, with a long “fiery” tail.
But what is a fireball?
Scientists say it was most likely one great meteor which managed to penetrate the lower layers of the atmosphere, transforming itself into a bright fireball green in colour. In astronomical terms, the word bolide means projectile: it commonly indicates a meteor of high brightness, of negative magnitude, but it is not a strictly scientific term, as astronomers do not distinguish meteors based on their brightness.
The fireball can be classified as a meteoroidthat is, a rocky fragment of metal whose dimensions can vary and reach an extension of 100m in diameter: when these fragments collide with the atmosphere, they shatter and appear to our eyes as large luminous trails which are called meteors or racing cars and are able to create an extraordinary luminous trail.
It also works like this for shooting stars, and in fact we could jokingly call what was seen in the sky “a big shooting star”.
