THE [[LUGO]] FIREBALL OF JANUARY 19, 1993

Observational data and the theory of the interaction of meteoroids wit h the Earth's atmosphere enable us to characterize the spectacular fir eball which was observed to cross Northern Italy from SE to NW on Janu ary 19, 1993, ending at about 00:33 h UT with an explosion approximate ly over the town of Lugo di Romagna. For estimated visual magnitudes M (v)=-22 divided by-25 at the peak of the light curve corresponding to values of an initial radius of (1.5 divided by 3) m, a meteor luminosi ty ranging between 3 . 10(18) and 4 . 10(19) erg/s is obtained, consis tent with the radiant flux values obtained by the Stefan-Boltzmann law for a black-body temperature of tens of thousand degrees. The explosi on of the bolide produced low-frequency ((1.5 divided by 2) Hz) infras onic waves which were monitored by a microseismic network of three sta tions near Ferrara and by regional seismic stations of the ING (Istitu to Nazionale di Geofisica) at (20 divided by 60) km distances from the epicentre located in the stratosphere. The analysis of recovered micr oremnants nearby the epicentre in the form of spherules of vaporized a nd recondensed material, outlines the relative importance of light che mical elements typical of soft structures in small Earth-crossing bodi es.