A small asteroid exploded spectacularly as it entered Earth’s atmosphere and streaked across the English Channel, wowing stargazers who stayed up to watch the rare event.
The asteroid, named Sar2667, and estimated to be around one-metre in size, was shown on video appearing to explode with a shooting star effect.
It was only the seventh time an asteroid has been detected before entering Earth’s atmosphere, thanks to European Space Agency’s (ESA) imminent impactor alert system.
Because of the alert, many observers in England and France were able to film the asteroid’s blazing green trail as it moved across the night sky.
“Got it, how beautiful,” a user called Kade posted on Twitter, along with a video tracking a bright light that suddenly exploded into a fiery orange ball.
The detonation created a shooting star and explosion in the air, known as an airburst.
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US physicist and airburst specialist Mark Boslough said it was only the seventh time in history that an airburst had been discovered in advance.
“Airbursts of this size happen somewhere several times per year… (but they are) rarely discovered in advance,” he told Wales Online.
Last month an asteroid the size of a minibus passed very close to Earth, just 3500 kilometres above the planet’s surface.
Asteroid 2023 BU whizzed above the southern tip of South America shortly after midnight on Friday 27 January.
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