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AN APPEAL has gone out to residents in the province of Cádiz to help find a 'missing meteorite' that may have landed just a few kilometres inland from the Costa de la Luz.
Dazzling, fast-moving lights were seen over the skies of Spain's south-west on Friday, October 14, which was confirmed to be the trail of a 'space ball' travelling at 53,000 kilometres per hour (nearly 33,000mph).
It was seen from around 700 kilometres (435 miles) away, at the SPMN observatory in Benicàssim, Castellón province, on the east coast.
Fragments of the meteor are believed to have touched down in or near the towns of Jerez de la Frontera and Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
And the Spanish Meteor Network (SPMN) has asked anyone based in those areas to keep their eyes open for space-rock fragments.
“The base triangulation at our stations indicates that this fireball produced meteorites,” the SPMN explains.
“It started at an altitude of 95 kilometres [59 miles] above sea-level opposite the coast of Cádiz, deepening in a series of fulgurations [fragmentation caused by high-frequency electric currents] to around 17 kilometres [10.6 miles] high, provoking a meteor shower over Sanlúcar and Jerez.”
These fragments are needed for research, if they can be found.
Professor and author Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez calls meteorites 'fascinating rocks that should belong to everyone'.
Naturally, anyone in the Jerez or Sanlúcar area with their eyes to the ground will be wondering how they know a stony shard is a piece of a meteor, rather than a lump of tarmac.
Anticipating this, the SPMN has explained certain features that differentiate space-rock from earth-rock.
They have a very fine crust, molten-looking and black, due to the extreme heat they experience when entering the planet's atmosphere, and they often have several 'flat faces' caused by the friction they are subjected to as a result of their exceptionally-high speed of travel.
This gives them the appearance of a polygon, or the shape of a piece of crystal.
Sometimes, their jagged edges look as though they have been 'sanded' or blunted, and they often contain granules of various metals.
In general, they are heavier than rocks native to planet Earth.
When meteorites are found in Spain, legislation passed 15 years ago – Law 42/2007 – requires they be placed in museums or other public display areas, since they are considered to belong to the people, as part of the country's geological heritage.
Selling them is illegal.
Anyone who thinks they may have found a meteorite is urged to contact the network at spmn@ice.csic.es, since the team will be able to tell straight away just from a picture or video whether they are indeed part of a space fireball.
“In the event of a meteorite being identified, we will focus on studying and cataloguing it, without any cost or inconvenience to whoever provides us with the sample,” the SPMN says.
“We give priority to 'fresh' meteorites; that is, those that have fallen very recently.
“But even those found by chance and which are much older can also be of interest.”
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