The “Valentine’s Fireball” that Flew into Southern Italy

In the spectacular, fascinating town of Matera, an object from space flew through the skies over Puglia and Basilicata before crash-landing onto the porch of Gianfranco and Pino Losignore’s home. They didn’t notice this immediately. Once they checked on their solar panels they discovered one of them was broken and they found the space rocks. It was at that moment they saw gray fragments scattered across the roof. 

The meteor fireball was tracked by surveillance cameras of Prisma, a project being run by the Italian Institute of Astrophysics. This is how experts tracked where it could have potentially landed. After the meteorite landed in Matera there was a rush to examine this ultra-rare phenomenon. What makes it such a rare occurrence is not the falling of the meteorite itself, but landing on a clean surface and not buried in sand, soil, or water. 

Here are 4 facts about the “Valentine’s Fireball: 

• They’re calling it the “Valentine’s Fireball” because the meteor crashed in Italy on February 14th. The meteorite flew through the sky at roughly 200 mph before landing on Losignore's porch. 
• More than 70 grams of the meteorite has been collected, all of which have not been contaminated. The meteorite landed on the porch so researchers have a clean specimen to study. It’s also rare to find meteorites in an easily discoverable space. Once they are done studying the sample, it will be moved to a museum. 
• This is not the first time meteorites have landed in Italy. In January 2020, a meteorite was found in Cavezzo in the Province of Modena. It was the first meteorite found from the Prisma system.
• The meteorite will be named after Gianfranco and Pino, the two who discovered the fragments of the meteorite at their home.