The hunt for the meteorites produced by the fireball that lit up the skies of Puglia and Basilicata on the evening of Valentine's Day has started: the fragments of the celestial object (for a total mass of 400-500 grams) could have fallen north of Matera, in a flat area of cultivated fields that extends for eight square kilometers between Borgo Venusio and Iesce.
This was announced by Prisma, the first Italian network for the study of meteors and the atmosphere of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
The experts managed to reconstruct the path of the fireball by triangulating the data obtained from the three all-sky cameras of the Prisma network (those of Castellana Grotte, Tricase and Vasto) which sighted it.
The celestial object would have started to shine at an altitude of about 90 kilometers and then followed a descending trajectory inclined about 60 degrees with respect to the ground, moving with an initial speed of 16-17 kilometers per second from Bari towards Matera.
This is a typical speed for an object of asteroid origin, as confirmed by the heliocentric orbit.
Calculations indicate that the bolide phase ended at about 22-23 kilometers of altitude, with a speed of 3.7 kilometers per second and a residual mass of about 400-500 grams.
Once the fireball is extinguished,
Prisma is recruiting volunteers to recover the meteorite: anyone wishing to participate in field research can find all the information on the website www.prisma.inaf.it and on MediaInaf.
"It may seem like a daunting and borderline impossible task to find a small rock of a few centimeters in an area a few square kilometers large, yet it has already happened", the experts recall.
It has already happened in January 2020, with the discovery of the Cavezzo meteorite near Modena, and it also happened a few days ago in Normandy, where an 18-year-old student found a fragment of asteroid 2023 CX1 that exploded in the sky over Northern France .
The Valentine's fireball would have been generated by the entry into the atmosphere of a celestial body with a mass of about 2.5 kilograms, which would have traveled following a trajectory that goes from Bari to Matera.
The phenomenon, reported by many people on social networks, was also documented by three of the over 60 fish-eye cameras of the Prisma network scattered throughout the country: these are those located in Castellana Grotte, Tricase and Vasto, which allowed to establish the exact moment of the passage of the celestial body, at 18:58 on 14 February.
In particular, the Castellana Grotte camera recorded the crossing of the sky by a very bright trail.
"The very first estimates favor a trajectory of the racing car that goes from Bari to Matera", explain the experts, who are already working to refine the calculations and estimate both the area of origin of the celestial object (generally racing cars have a asteroidal origin which can be traced back to the main belt located between Mars and Jupiter) and the eventual fall area of the meteorite.
Considering that the first estimates indicate an initial mass of the celestial body equal to 2.5 kilograms upon entry into the atmosphere, it is probable that not all the material disintegrated and that something survived, falling to the ground in the form of a meteorite which could weigh about 200 grams