A beautiful fireball was witnessed by many in the morning of November 22, 2024 in the western sky of Iceland.
At 07:28:43 GMT on November 22, 2024, a fireball was witnessed in the western sky of Iceland. A fireball is a bright meteor with luminosity which equals or exceeds that of the brightest planets.
Photographer Fanney Gunnarsdóttir was situated at Háey in Dyrhólaey in south Iceland and caught the fireball on a beautiful photograph. She granted us permission to publish it here. The orange glow below the fireball is from a volcanic eruption in the Reykjanes peninsula.
An image taken at 07:29:21 shows the trail the meteor left behind. It was still visible five minutes later. The trail suggests that the meteor exploded at more than 60 km altitude.
Rough calculations show that the fireball exploded 12 degrees above the horizon. It suggests that the meteor probably disintegrated roughly 400 km from the observer or a little less than 200 km west of Reykjavík, above the ocean between Iceland and Greenland. It's brightness suggests it was likely only the size of a small pebble, a couple of centimetres or so.
Keep in mind that this is a rough estimate with a large uncertainty based on only one photograph. More images would help us calculate the fireball even better. If you happen to have footage of it, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Sævar Helgi Bragason is an award winning astronomy and science communicator and educator, lecturer, author, TV host and owner and editor of icelandatnight.is and eclipse2026.is.
