The Puerto Lapice eucrite fall phenomenon

Abstract

The fall of the Pu erto Lápice eucrite occurred in the afternoon of May 10, 2007, 17h57m20±2s UTC. This impressive daylight bolide was witnessed by thousands of people from Spain, and is being carefully studied in the framework of the Spanish Meteor and Fireball Network (SPMN) in a similar way that we previously did after the fall of the Villalbeto de la Peña L6 or dinary chondrite [1,2]. Unfortunately, there is no video records to our knowledge of the Puerto Lápice even t, but some eyewitnesses were able to take pictures of the persistent train from at least two different locations. Nocturn astrometric calibrations from both places have been obtained, and these data together with in situ trajectory measurements with theodolite of casual eyewitnesses have allowed to estimate the atmo spheric trajectory and the radiant with reasonable accu racy. A preliminary trajectory reconstruction by the SPMN obtained only two weeks after the event helped to recover the first meteorite specimens. The meteorite was presented on June 11, 2007 during the International Conference Meteoroids 2007 in Barcelona. In addition to the fall phenomena, the interest of this bolide lies in the eucrite nature of the recovered meteorite, that has been recently reported in the Meteoritical Bulletin [3]. Of the 200 eucrites known until 2000, only 25 correspond to observed falls, but the fall circumstances are poorly known except in few remarkable cases like e.g. Pasamonte.