Space rock reportedly hits Cuba, lights up night sky, causes explosions

The Caribbean island was previously hit by a meteorite in February 2019, with space rock fragments causing a sonic boom powerful enough to shatter windows in the city of Pinar del Rio on the country’s West.

Seismologists in Cuba have tentatively attributed mysterious lights illuminating the night sky above the Moa seismological station in the country’s east to a meteorite.

On March 20, at 10:16 pm, the station registered "several luminous phenomena", with residents in multiple communities reporting spotting a red and white light followed by one or more explosions. 

National Seismological Service Chief Enrique Arango Arias confirmed to CubaDebate that the agency believes the event was caused by a space rock. Local residents published images of the phenomena online, as well as footage of satellite equipment showing the flash of the possible meteorite. 

Cuba's size - just 110,000 square km, and the fact that it is surrounded on all sides by water, make meteorite strikes a relatively rare phenomenon on the island, with less than ten confirmed strikes reported in the past eighty-plus years. The most peculiar touchdown was a daytime strike in June 1994 of a rock weighing about 400 grams in the town of Lajas, central Cuba. The last confirmed meteorite strike hit the island on 1 February 2019.