On December 27, 2016, many residents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua witnessed an amazing phenomenon - one after another, several fireballs swept at great speed through the night sky (see the video below).
Astronomer Bazin Edgar Castro, president of the Guatemalan Astronomy Association (AGA), said the fireballs were naturally occurring.
“I exclude that it could have been a UFO, as some eyewitnesses believe. This is not something extraterrestrial, but a completely natural phenomenon, a small stone that entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 120,000 km / h and was burned by friction in the high layers of the atmosphere."
A disintegrating meteorite flew over Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Mexico. The astronomer suggests that it was a small rock 12-13 kilometers in size.
Bazin recalled that in 1996 a similar meteorite crossed Guatemala and fell in Honduras, and in 2001 space debris fell from the sky onto the Guatemalan city of Halpatagua, which apparently was the turbine of some kind of engine.
“The likelihood of a meteorite hitting Earth is a real problem. In addition, there are more than six thousand asteroids that can collide with the Earth at any time. Their fall can last from five to 10 seconds at a speed of 100,000 to 180,000 km / h,”said the astronomer.
The National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology (INSIVUMEH) confirmed that a meteorite crossed Guatemalan airspace at 10:30 pm on Tuesday December 27 and broke apart in the west.
A spokesman for the Salvadoran Astronomy Association (Astro) said: "Meteorites are quite common, but still shocking."
Promotional video:
A lot of video recordings made by eyewitnesses of the night space fireworks have appeared on social networks.
Voronina Svetlana
