By Dean Murray via SWNS
A bright green fireball was spotted plummeting to Earth on Saturday (May 18).
The European Space Agency (ESA) reported the meteor was traveling at around 100,662 mph when it was seen over Spain and Portugal at 10:46 pm local time.
ESA also admitted they were unaware of the space rock until it entered the planet’s atmosphere.
They reported: “ESA’s fireball camera in Cáceres, Spain, spotted this stunning meteor last night!
“Our Planetary Defence Office is currently analyzing the size and trajectory of the object to assess the chance that any material made it to the surface.
“It was definitely not tracked or reported prior to impact. We are currently checking whether there is any ‘precovery’ information (i.e. if we can find it in any existing data retrospectively).
“It appears that this object was a small piece of a comet. We estimate that it flew over Spain and Portugal traveling at ~45 km/s before burning up over the Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of ~60 km. The likelihood of any meteorites being found is very low.”
