A meteor shower was caught on camera streaking across the night sky over Chile’s capital Santiago. According to a BBC report, scientists at the University of Concepción confirmed that the phenomenon captured on July 7 was a small rocky body that burned up after entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The meteor streaked across the sky, emitting a huge flare over the city of Santiago. Authorities, cited in local media reports, said the meteor broke up into several pieces before disappearing in the Andes region.
Residents of the city heard the sound of the meteor passing through the atmosphere like a loud thunderclap, as reported by TNH1, a Brazilian media outlet. Additionally, astronomer Juan Carlos Beamin of the Chilean Astronomical Foundation said the meteor that passed through Santiago was called “T12.cl.”
Meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere burn up in the dense earth’s atmosphere and this produces lights in the sky due to friction with the air. That’s what caused the meteor to glow in the sky, Beemin said. The meteor entered the Earth at a speed of ten thousand kilometers per hour, Beemin said.
Alan Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Canterbury’s Mount John Observatory, said a meteor descending from the atmosphere at high speed over an urban area was a rare event. He said it was shining very brightly, so it could have been a large object. Gilmore also said that the booming sound that residents heard was evidence that the meteorite came from as far as 60 km from Earth.
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