Declaration of IPMA - Azores:
Meteor seen in Graciosa Island:
The IPMA confirms the occurrence of a meteor in yesterday (February 2, 2015) by 21:20 UTC on Graciosa Island. Upon its entry into Earth's atmosphere has caused a wave of shock that was registered to the surface sequentially in seismic stations of the islands of Pico, Sao Jorge, Graciosa and Terceira. The impact of the shock wave on the Graciosa has caused a shock like a grade II-scale earthquake in Mercalli.
Figure presents the records of the shock wave felt in the seismic stations of Graciosa. [
link to www.meteopt.com]
Possible disintegration meteor recorded by the seismic network CIVISA
Between about 20:20 and 20: 35h (local time, UTC-1) of yesterday, February 2, the seismic network recorded the CIVISA a sequence of vibrations in seismic stations located on the islands of S. Jorge, Graciosa , Terceira and São Miguel. These signals correspond to the wave propagation speed identical to the speed of sound. At the same time have received a communication from Graciosa to report that people have felt a vibration similar to an earthquake.
The type of signal recorded and the information provided by the population was consistent with the occurrence of a sonic boom generated by something on the move with faster speed than sound, like a supersonic plane. Contacted the NAV of Oceanic Control Centre on the island of Santa Maria, was obtained the information that there was no air traffic in the region of the Azores to the indicated time.
Throughout the day, was assembled a set of information transmitted by the population of Graciosa, about watching glare, noise and vibration felt in hearing almost the entire island. More detailed reports of some people about having observed first a flash in the sky and only moments later that was heard the noise and felt the vibration in conjunction with the information provided by seismic stations pointed out that the phenomenon will have given rise disintegration been a meteor entering the atmosphere. Noise and vibration felt and recorded thus correspond to the arrival of sound and shock waves on the surface of the earth as a result of meteor entering the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound.
This event was also recorded by Infrasound station located in the Graciosa island and integrated in the international monitoring system (IMS) of the CTBTO - Preparatory Committee of the Treaty for the Prohibition Comprehensive Nuclear-Test.
