An astrophysicist says meteors like today’s usually evaporate in the atmosphere.

The meteor seen across the country on Saturday evening is normal for Portugal, although rare of this size, and usually these rocks evaporate into the atmosphere and “nothing of reasonable size could have fallen”.

The statement was made by a researcher from the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences and the University of Coimbra, Nuno Peixinho, according to whom “these fireballs,” thanks to the high speed at which they move, can give the feeling of being at a distance and, because “they are not so close” to to where it is observed.

Nuno Peixinho explained that 50 thousand tons of cosmic dust fall to the Earth every year and that in Portugal and Spain there is a network of cameras activated automatically to record these phenomena and that by comparing these data it is possible to understand whether this is true. fell or not, and calculate, with some error, the location.

“These are pieces of stone that fly at high altitude and at speeds of 10 to 70 kilometers per second,” Nuno Peixinho explained in an interview with Lusa.

According to the researcher, just like shooting stars, although they are much smaller, they are consumed in the atmosphere, and it is from this chemical process that a visible light trail is created, which in the case of blue “indicates that the type of material that is burning and evaporates, it’s magnesium.”

“Because they move at a speed of several kilometers per second against the air, the pressure they create in the atmosphere is so great that the temperature easily reaches 25 thousand degrees, and at this temperature everything evaporates,” emphasized Nuno Peixinho, for whom, as a scientist , it would be interesting to have material for analysis.

The researcher emphasized that “as they teach in school, if it falls to the ground, it’s a meteorite, if it doesn’t fall, it’s a meteor.”

Nuno Peixinho stressed that there is no reason to fear the sighting of a meteor of this size in Portugal, as it is an “isolated phenomenon.”

Most meteorites fall into the ocean and, statistically, given the size of Portugal, they are less likely to fall on national soil.

“For a meteorite to fall on someone or something, you need a very strong misfortune,” the astrophysicist emphasized.

According to Nuno Peixinho, “nothing could have fallen completely and of a reasonable size to make it clear that it had fallen.”

“It’s entirely possible that some fragments fell, the big question is whether we can find them,” which could be “a matter of luck or persistence” and won’t necessarily happen the way people perceive it. who saw the flash.

The astrophysicist emphasized that the larger the size of meteors, the fewer there are and “the one that makes this light, with the trail of the fireball [a que os americanos chamam fireball]It is a rarity”.