Another new hunt for meteorites in Italy: this time we are looking for those that could have been generated by the bright meteor (bolide) that Saturday, August 5, at 22:21, illuminated the skies of the southern regions. Despite the bad weather, its passage was documented by the Capua and Vasto chambers of the Prisma network, the First Italian Network for the Study of Meteors and the Atmosphere of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
The bolide appeared at a height of about 77 kilometers on the border between Campania and Molise (between the villages of Sepino and Sassinoro) and traveled at a speed of just over 13.5 kilometers per second, covering in five seconds almost 63 kilometers in a north-east direction, with an inclination of about 60 degrees on the horizon. It then became extinct at 22.5 kilometers of altitude, west of Lake Occhito, after having suffered two major fragmentations at 34 and 26 kilometers high. Following the first explosion, explain the experts of Prisma, it reached an absolute magnitude comparable to that of the full Moon.
"The original mass, between 30 and 70 kilograms (corresponding to a size of the order of 25-35 centimeters in the case of a density typical of cosmic objects), was largely consumed", add the experts of Prisma. "We estimate that there is a mass residue between 250 and 1,400 grams (depending on the dynamic model used to interpret the data) that should have fallen in the region west of Lake Occhito, in the mountainous-hilly territory at the municipalities of Sant'Elia a Pianisi and Macchia Valfortore, in the province of Campobasso. However, the winds may have moved the fragments further, widening the fall range."
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