A large meteor illuminated the sky of Portugal during the night between Saturday and Sunday 19 May. As can be seen from numerous videos published on social media, the sky of the municipality of Castro Daire, in the north of the country: around midnight it was crossed by a fireball.
Most of the images come from the town of Pinheiro.
The color attributed to the event depends on the dominant chemical composition of the fragment being incinerated. This happens because friction with the atmosphere wears away the layers of the fragment, generating a vapor of various chemical elements. For this reason, from the color we can hypothesize the chemical composition of the fallen meteorite.
- Yellow, if the dominant element is iron;
- Green, if the dominant element is magnesium;
- Purple-blue if the dominant element is calcium;
- Red, if the dominant elements are oxygen and nitrogen;
- Orange, if the dominant element is sodium.