On Sunday 8 October at 10.53pm , a luminous fireball crossed the skies of Sardinia: the meteorite that generated this very bright trail may have fallen to the ground in the area of the municipality of Armungia, in Gerrei.
The news of what happened was communicated by the National Institute of Astrophysics, which monitors the fall of meteorites in the Italian skies with the Prisma network.
This surveillance network is equipped with various cameras spread across the Sardinian and national territory and on Sunday 8 October, the Prisma cameras of the Sardinia Radio Telescope and the Gennargentu observed a very bright fireball falling on Sardinia at 10.53pm.
With the footage taken from the two cameras, INAF astrophysicists reconstructed the trajectory of the meteoroid which became visible at an altitude of 78.3 km and went extinct at 28.0 km above sea level.
The meteoroid was moving at a speed of about 60,000 km per hour and may have reached the ground in an area located about 1.1 km north-west of the center of Armungia.
A small stone of a very dark colour, opaque and a few centimeters in diameter: it could be the part of the meteorite that survived contact with the atmosphere. For anyone who ventures in search of this fragment, INAF astrophysicists recommend absolutely not touching the alleged meteorite.
«Take a photo with your smartphone, note the GPS coordinates and send everything via email to the Prisma Project Office (prisma_po@inaf.it)», states INAF.
"Our experts will reply as soon as possible to tell you if it is a meteorite and how to collect it in the most correct way." In the event of a discovery, it is possible to directly call the National Coordinator of Prisma, Daniele Gardiol of the Inaf-Astrophysics Observatory of Turin on 349 197 7591.
The meteorite orbited between Venus and Mars and could be a remnant of the primordial cloud that gave rise to the planets of our Solar System about 5 billion years ago.
