A piece of a comet entered Earth’s atmosphere over Portugal and exploded, creating a bright flash of light. The explosion was recorded tens of kilometres above the ground. The cosmic rock lit up the skies over the Iberian Peninsula, IFL Science reported. The event was recorded on November 2, 2025, at 8:41 pm local time. Casas de Millán, Cáceres, Spain, a meteor detection station, was surprisingly able to record the comet entry and explosion. The station is run by the European Space Agency’s Planetary Defence Office, and it is part of the AllSky7 network.
After making a steep entry, the comet fragment was first recorded at an altitude of 97 kilometres above the town of Lousã in central Portugal. It then travelled for about 80 kilometres through the atmosphere at an estimated speed of 81,000 kilometres per hour.
The forcefully moving rock became incandescent soon after entering Earth’s atmosphere. It quickly reached a temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius and exploded at an altitude of 43 kilometres. There was another meteor near the area where this comet piece was observed. However, the two bolides are believed to be unrelated since their trajectories are different. According to the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN – IAA-CSIC), the cometary fragment got caught when Earth was there. Bolides can fall down at this time since there are some meteor showers going on. The Southern Taurids are currently visible in the night sky and peaking again. There will soon also be the Northern Taurids and the Leonid Meteor Shower.
