Three seconds. That was the time it took for a meteor to appear in the sky of Porto Alegre and disintegrate at about 40 km altitude on Tuesday night (5).
The record was made at 8:47 pm by the Heller & Jung Space Observatory, created in 2016 by researcher Carlos Jung, who coordinates the production engineering course at Faccat (Faculdades Integradas de Taquara), in Rio Grande do Sul.
The meteor was of the “fireball” type. This type of space fragment is characterized by an intense glow and its natural extinction without touching the ground, unlike another very similar type, the bolide, which explodes at the end.
To determine which type of meteor, or shooting star, as it is also known, the apparent magnitude is measured, that is, the brightness of the object as we see it from Earth.
For a meteor to be considered a fireball or bolide, it must have an apparent magnitude equal to or greater than -4. In this case, the meteor recorded by Jung was -7.
When it comes to measuring the apparent magnitude, the brighter the brightness, the lower the value. For comparison, the sun has an apparent magnitude of -27 and the full moon of -13.
Jung does not live by astronomy. His profession has nothing to do with the observatory, which is open to the public.
“I do it for leisure and to try to show children and adolescents the importance of science. My area is different, I receive schools [no observatório] and I think this contact with science is very important, especially in elementary and high school.”
The researcher says he shares all the data recorded by the observatory with researchers and other interested parties. It is possible, for example, to follow the observatory’s cameras in real time, in addition to climate measurements that are also made by Heller & Jung.
