A Bright Fireball Over The Coast of The State of Bahia

In February, 21th around 01:27 (UT), inhabitants from the oceanfront cities of the states of Bahia, Sergipe and Alagoas observed a very bright fireball. Using four videos obtained with security cameras installed in metropolitan region of Salvador (Bahia) and in a car near Aracaju (Sergipe), it was possible determined the fireball trajectory and that it had a peak of absolute magnitude about -17, entering in the atmosphere with a velocity of 15.94 km/s, that was doing an angle of 49º (relative to the horizon). The fireball exploded at 21 km of altitude, about 134 km ESE from the coast of the city of Salvador. The energy released was estimated in 8.5 10-3 kt of TNT, corresponding to a pre-atmospheric mass between 700 kg and 1100 kg [1], being that the uncertainty obtained for this mass is caused by the imprecision in the measurement of the luminous flux in different recordings. Using the average density of an ordinary chondrite meteorite (3,8 g/cm³) [2], the most common meteorite type recovered in the Earth surface, the meteoroid diameter was estimated between 0.7 m and 0.85 m. Applying the D-criterion [3,4] in the estimate heliocentric orbit calculated for the meteoroid, we suggested that it was more probably a sporadic meteor.