Thousands of Canarians observed an impressive green and white flash crossing the Archipelago's sky last night. The phenomenon, which occurred around 11:35 PM on Friday, was visible to the naked eye from numerous points and generated several calls to the Emergency and Security Coordination Center (CECOES) 112.
The object was recorded by key telescopes such as the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma. Cameras captured the meteor at a low altitude, heading east-northeast, in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. It was also detected by the cameras of the AMOS experiment, installed at the observatories of Teide and Roque de los Muchachos.
According to Javier Licandro, a researcher at the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC), this double detection is crucial. It will allow for a highly precise reconstruction of the object's trajectory and analysis of its brightness and composition thanks to the obtained spectra.
The phenomenon's luminosity was such that even attendees at a concert in the Palmetum in Santa Cruz de Tenerife witnessed it. The 112 confirmed receiving multiple calls describing the event as a "point of light".
Initially, hypotheses circulated about a meteorite or space debris, but scientific analysis indicates it was a meteor, an extremely bright meteor caused by a piece of space rock entering Earth's atmosphere at high speed.
The information gathered by the Gran Telescopio Canarias and the AMOS system will be fundamental for further studying this phenomenon and determining its exact physical characteristics and trajectory.
