Watch: Meteor burns bright as it streaks, explodes over Europe
A meteoroid called Sar2667 lit up the skies over Europe as it burst through the atmosphere. It was only the 7th meteoroid to be detected before colliding with Earth.
Watch: Meteor lights up sky over Europe
A 1-meter meteor called Sar2667 lit up the skies over Europe as it burst through the atmosphere. It was only the 7th meteoroid to be detected before colliding with Earth.
Europeans were treated to a light show as a meteor burned its way through the Earth’s atmosphere.
The meteoroid was detected hours before entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It was only the 7th time that astronomers spotted a meteoroid before it hit Earth's atmosphere, a trend that the European Space Agency credits to "rapid advancements in global detection capabilities."
HOW ASTRONOMERS KNEW EXACTLY WHERE A SMALL ASTEROID WOULD IMPACT EARTH
The meteoroid was named Sar2667 and was roughly 1 meter (about 3.5 feet) in length.
The advanced notice allowed people to capture the meteor in photographs and on video as it plummeted through the atmosphere.
According to the ESA, there are over 30,000 asteroids that qualify as "near-Earth asteroids." Small meteoroids like Sar2667 are quite common and meet Earth every couple of weeks without posing much of a threat to the planet.
A 1 meter meteor lit up the night sky over Europe. (@KrisztiUk via Storyful)
NASA considers asteroids in space larger than 140 meters (about 153 yards) "Potentially Harmful Asteroids." About a third of the roughly 30,000 "near-Earth asteroids" discovered are considered potentially harmful.
In 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos in a test of the agency’s kinetic impact technique for protecting Earth from a catastrophic impact.