A small meteorite flew over northern France on Sunday night and disintegrated over the west of the country, briefly illuminating the sky without causing any damage, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
The celestial object, an asteroid about one meter in diameter, was observed for the first time by an amateur astronomer in Hungary on Sunday evening. Informed ESA monitored and calculated its trajectory and issued the alert around 22:30 (21:30 GMT), Ian Carnelli, head of the space agency’s planetary defense program, told AFP. After overflying the Paris region and Normandy (west), the bolide, christened #Sar2667, arrived on Earth as scheduled around 03:00 (02:00 GMT) on Monday and broke up on entering the atmosphere near the channel coast up. The blast was particularly visible over Normandy and southern England and did no damage.
This phenomenon occurs “roughly every two or three months, most commonly over the oceans,” said Ian Carnelli. “It is important to be able to inform the population in order to avoid panic. It can be a concern if it happens in populated areas, but given the size of the object, there’s nothing to worry about.”
The detection time depends on the size of the asteroid: the larger it is, the sooner it can be detected. “To be able to predict an impact with such a small object like this night several hours in advance is extraordinary,” commented the ESA officer.
In 2013, a fireball about fifty feet in diameter exploded over Chelyabinsk in Siberia (eastern Russia), causing extensive damage and injuring several hundred people. “Today, our systems would be able to prevent such an impact about a month in advance,” allowing civil defense services to protect the population, according to Ian Carnelli. #Sar2667 comes from the inner solar system’s asteroid belt, which contains hundreds of millions of small asteroids. When they enter Earth’s atmosphere, asteroids are called bolides, then their fragments on the ground take the name of meteorites.
A small meteorite flew over northern France on Sunday night and disintegrated over the west of the country, briefly illuminating the sky without causing any damage, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
The celestial object, an asteroid about one meter in diameter, was…