Fireball in 2008 linked to the breakup of a comet in 1920

Image: J. Madiedo, University of Huelva-CIECEM, Spain

From the article...

In a forthcoming paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an international team of astronomers link a brilliant fireball seen in 2008 to the breakup of a comet in 1920.

Last July, people in Spain, Portugal and France watched the brilliant fireball produced by a boulder crashing down through the Earth’s atmosphere. In a paper to be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez (Institute of Space Sciences, CSIC-IEEC, Spain), José M. Madiedo (University of Huelva-CIECEM, Spain) and Iwan P. Williams (Queen Mary, University of London) present dramatic images of this event. The scientists go on to explain how the boulder may originate from a comet which broke up nearly 90 years ago and suggest the tantalising possibility that chunks of the boulder (and hence pieces of the comet) are waiting to be found on the ground.

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