Ait Saoun, Morocco ايت ساون

Ait Saoun, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco – Tuesday, August 06, 2024, 9:40 PM local time, a meteor fireball was observed over the Zagora Province. The trajectory is somewhat uncertain, but meteorites have been recovered from this event!

Rating:	Class A
Entry Date/Time:	2023-08-20 20:40:56 UTC
End Location:	90 km WNW of Zagora
Endpoint Coordinates:	30.7306°N, 6.7273°W
Entry Energy/Mass Estimate:	~8 tonne TNT / ~300kg
Entry Speed:	unknown
End Height:	~37.8 km
Bearing Angle:	96° E
Incidence Angle:	~16° from vertical
Estimated Strewn Mass:	< 120 kg
Estimated Main Mass:	< 700 grams
TKW	>1 kg
Classification:	possible carbonaceous
Event Links:	none

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Video / Data

The meteor fireball was captured by an all sky camera at the Oukaïmeden Observatory and posted to Twitter by @TSpacechat:

English |
Picture of the fireball observed in Morocco yesterday. Beautiful event!

Arabic |
صورة للكرة النارية التي شوهدت البارحة بالمغرب. جميلة جدا!
Credits | المصدر
Aziz Ettahar Kaeouach (https://t.co/Jgx94datry) #meteorites #meteorite #نيزك #نيازك #نيزك_مغربي #نيزك_الان pic.twitter.com/Z28yngH6mn

— Taha Shisseh (@TSpacechat) August 7, 2024

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Meteorites Found!

Search efforts are in progress, and thousands of local people have travelled to Ait Saoun to search for meteorites. Dozens of meteorite fragments have been found. Find locations are available below to VIP subsribers.

It is difficult to guess the classification of this meteorite from the images alone. It appears to be carbonaceous, but we won’t know for sure until the material is tested in the lab.

For more information on this and other falls, join the discussion on social media, by clicking the links below:

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Join the Strewnify Europe Facebook group

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StrewnLAB Maps & Data

The meteor fireball was captured by an all sky camera at the the Oukaïmeden Observatory. This data was used, in conjunction with find location data, to estimate a trajectory and rough search area shown below. Please download and review the Google Earth files below for detailed maps of the search area.

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2024-08-19 UPDATE V4: Video data was used to constrain the search area to known find locations. Some assumptions were made, so this should be considered a rough estimate.

2024-08-20 UPDATE V5: Find data was received and the trajectory was re-analyzed. The data from Oukaimeden Observatory is fairly precise, but it was difficult to resolve against the reported finds, which are larger masses in the east and smaller masses in the west. The only trajectory that fits well is one that begins at 70km, which is very unusual. I also do not have any video to tell the speed of the meteor, so maybe this fireball was very slow and did not begin ablation at a normal height (typically 90km).

If you have find coordinates or video of the event, please contact Jim Goodall at +1 586 709 5888 (phone or WhatsApp)

ملحوظة: أنا لا أشتري صخور النيزك. أنا مهتم فقط بمعلومات الخريطة.

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Meteorite Find Coordinates

Contacts in the field have reported dozens of find locations to Strewnify. Meteorite find locations are available to VIP subscribers as a KMZ file download here:

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Weather Data

The weather data below is sourced from weather balloons, and publicly available via NOAA’s Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA). This data is downloaded and post-processed by the StrewnLAB algorithm, to account for changing weather patterns and weather balloon drift. The plots have altitude on the y-axis, in kilometers above sea level. The wind speed below 10km has large effect onthe drift of meteorites.