A burning meteor was caught moving through European skies during the weekend. Lucky viewers got to catch a glimpse of this extraordinary cosmic light show.
Burning Meteor Blazes Over European Skies
Meteor lights up the sky of France, as seen from Paris pic.twitter.com/9RphBdkQIw
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) February 13, 2023
Futurism reports that the meteor, called Sar2667, is the seventh in history that was picked up before setting foot into the earth's own atmosphere. The European Space Agency credits such a trend to a fast enhancement in capabilities for global detection. Sar2667 was picked up a couple of hours prior to its entry, as reported by Yahoo! News.
Because of its advance notice, several individuals were able to capture snaps and clips of the cosmic light show. Landscape photographer Gijs de Reijke, for one, was able to get an extraordinary snap of the meteoroid, capturing the green tail that followed its descent.
Asteroid Sar2667, about a meter in diameter, was expected to fall near the French city of Le Havre at 02:59h UTC. I drove to a photogenic spot close to home in the south of the Netherlands to capture it, just as the sky cleared.#asteroid #meteor @IMOmeteors @apod pic.twitter.com/MNZofhkrd7
— Gijs de Reijke (@GijsDeReijke) February 13, 2023
As of this writing, the American Meteor Society has already received 61 reports of the cosmic light show sighting.
Krisztián Sárneczky, a Hungarian astronomer, picked up Sar2667 just a few hours before it reached the earth's atmosphere last Sunday night. Space reports that Sárneczky spotted the meteoroid at the Piszkéstető Station of the Konkoly Observatory around a hundred kilometers northeast of Budapest. He detected it through a 2-feet telescope.
Such findings were then forwarded to the European Space Agency a few hours before the burning meteoroid descended.
Sárneczky mentions that he detected the burning meteor while conducting a regular NEO (near-earth object) examination. The astronomer notes that the cosmic object was clearly an NEO but that it was not fast-moving. The meteor was faint and moving toward the earth.
Space reports that this was not Sárneczky's first time picking up teasers of cosmic events. The asteroid hunter also gave a similar heads-up in March 2022. He mentions that he thought that such a time would be the only one in his lifetime, yet he was wrong.
Near-Earth Objects
Yahoo! News reports that according to the European Space Agency, around 30,000 asteroids are considered near-earth asteroids. Small, burning meteors such as Sar2667 are relatively common. They get into contact with the earth every few weeks without bringing any danger.
Potentially detrimental asteroids are those in space that exceed around 140 meters. Around one-third of the estimated 30,000 near-earth asteroids are thought to pose potential dangers.
Back in 2022, the DART spacecraft of NASA crashed into the Dimorphos asteroid to gauge the kinetic impact methodologies of the agency. Such a technique is intended to protect the earth from such catastrophes.
While the recent cosmic light show may have appeared quite ethereal and incredible to glimpse, the flyby of Sars2667 shows the importance of detecting NEOs that could potentially enter the earth's atmosphere.
RELATED ARTICLE: Meteor or Space Junk? Astronomer Identifies Object Spotted in the Cosmic Phenomenon Across Scotland and Northern Ireland Skies
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