The Oukaimeden Observatory, a research center affiliated with Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech (OUCA), has shared further explanations into luminous phenomena that graced Morocco’s night sky last Sunday evening.
Utilizing a suite of four specialized cameras, the scientists’ team from the observatory meticulously documented the rapid transit of luminous bodies, now identified as meteorites believed to hail from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars within our solar system.
In a statement to the press, Dr. Meryem Guennoun, Moroccan astronomer and the team’s physicist leader, said that the lights were caused by asteroid collisions which penetrated Earth’s atmosphere and illuminated the sky due to their gigantic size and their brightness.
Pending further revelations, Dr. Guennoun shared that ongoing research aims to determine the origins of these solid pieces.
As highlighted by Guennoun, this event echoes a similar episode in June 2021, except that at that time the location of this meteorite’s fall was not in question, and that the planet from which it fell had been identified.