On Thursday 24 January at 20h59m07s UTC, a large meteoric bolide was observed by many witnesses throughout north-west of Italy, as it crossed the sky showing a predominantly blue trail of light. There are many reports and visual testimonies. The brilliant meteor was also filmed by two stations of the Italian Meteor Group (IMG)-UAIsm of Scorzè (VE) and Rovereto (TN).
Despite the distance and the low angle of convergence it was possible to determine preliminary the actual location of the trajectory of the meteoroid, associated with a radiant in the constellation of Leo, near the star Regulus, establishing that the body entered the atmosphere with an azimuth of about 97° and an inclination of about 23°.
Figure 1 shows the projection on the ground (yellow dots) of the first part of the trajectory, which became visible at about 113 km above the Ligurian Sea, passing the zenith of the city of Imperia and finished beyond the border on the French Alps. Figure 2 shows the probable orbit followed by the meteoroid towards its encounter with the Earth.
Figure 1 – The trajectory of the 2019 January 24 fireball.
Figure 2 – The orbit of the 2019 January 24 fireball.
Figure 3 – Radio echo of this bolide recorded in Venice by the Planetarium radio station.
