Tiros

TIROS meteorite fall ( ~400 g, Howardite, cumulate, S4) near Tiros, Minas Gerais, in Brazil at ~3.25.15 a.m. BRT (~6.25.15 UTC) on 8 May 2020

The Tiros meteorite with its shiny fusion crust and flowlines. Photo: Meteoríticas

“Peguei ela quando eu vi. Eu pensei meu Deus isso é um meteorito isso não é pedra na Terra, é um meteorito.” (Senhor Titota)

[I took it when I saw it. I thought my God this is a meteorite this is not a stone on Earth, it is a meteorite.]

A meteorite, a Eucrite (~ 400 g), of the bolide above Minas Gerais (Brazil) on 8 May 2020 at 3.25 a.m. BRT (6.25 UT) was found by Mr Titota, a farmer from Tiros, in the afternoon of 18 September 2020 at location 18°54’37.03″S, 45°49’10.14″W next to a trail while riding on his property about 150 meters from his farm house in the rural area of Tiros. After excluding that it was cow dung Mr Titota was attracted by the shiny surface of the meteorite and marked the find location to come back to it later in the afternoon to pick up the stone. He then made a video of the rock and sent it to Father José Luís de Araujo Paiva who, remembering the bolide on 8 May, told him that in fact it could be a meteorite. The video was then sent to the journalist Sandro Barcelos who published the video on the Tirense Notícias website. Teresinha Souza from the group Mulheres de Estrelas realised the connection of the meteorite specimen to the May bolide and the group published a video of the meteorite in social media on 19 September. On 21 September Prof. Elizabeth Zucolotto inspected the meteorite for the first time. There have been no additional finds so far. The meteorite has been classified at the UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) and on 5 November a type specimen was handed over to the museum. On 28 November 2020 Tiros was registered as probable fall in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database. On 23 January 2024 the meteorite was reclassified as Howardite.

Video: Mr. Titota / Mulheres de Estrelas (19 September 2020)

The Tiros meteorite with its shiny fusion crust. Photo: Mulheres de Estrelas

Video: BRAMON (3 November 2020)

Mr Titota pointing at the find location of the meteorite. Image: BRAMON

The bolide

The entry angle of the meteoroid was about 15.8° to the horizontal. The luminous trail of the bolide with a southwest-to-northeast trajectory was about 180.1 kilometers long, lasted 9.76 seconds and ended at an altitude of about 29.7 kilometers. It is estimated that the preatmospheric mass of the meteoroid was between 180 and 300 kilograms.

The luminous trail and strewn field as calculated by Jim Goodall and BRAMON. Image: BRAMON

Video: BRAMON (8 May 2020)

Video: Clima ao Vivo (8 May 2020)

The detonation boom of the bolide can be heard at 1:59 running time (1:57 minutes after the flare). Video: unknown, published by Carlos Augusto Di Pietro

Video of the end of the luminous trail of the bolide taken from location -18.594°,-46.433° in Patos de Minas. Video: Larissa Sousa Araùjo / Fazenda Juá

LINKS

Rock found in Tiros (Brazil) is a meteorite from Vesta that had its fall filmed in May

Discussion group with the meteorite finder Titota and others (Padre José Luís de Araújo Paiva, Rosa do Titota, Paulo Martioli, Marcos Gurgel, Sandro Barcelos), streamed on 3 March 2022.

error: