Meteorite found! Space rock from brilliant fireball over Europe located in France
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Loading... - Minna Virtanen
- 20 Feb 2023
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An asteroid was discovered in space just hours before slamming into Earth's atmosphere early Monday (Feb. 13) local time. Now a meteorite from that even has come to light.
A cosmic find lit up the search of a meteorite-hunting citizen science project.
Volunteers searching north of Rouen, France near the northern coast spotted a meteorite from fireball event 2023 CX1.
The space rock originated with a small asteroid that burned up dramatically over Europe around 10 p.m. EST Sunday, Feb. 12 (0300 GMT Monday, Feb. 13), just hours after astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky discovered it from a telescope in Hungary.
Meteorite finder Loïs Leblanc is a student who is just 18 years old, volunteer group Vigie-Ciel ("Sky Lookout" is an approximate translation in English) wrote on Twitter (opens in new tab) on Wednesday (Feb. 15). Vigie-Ciel and an affiliated project, FRIPON, are space-focused citizen science efforts working with numerous French scientific institutions like the Paris Observatory and the University of Paris-Saclay.
Leblanc made the find after his attention was caught "by a dark stone barely level with the ground of a field, in the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger," the group wrote in a blog post (opens in new tab). (Translation provided by Space.com). The team plans to scour the area, in concert with local residents, to look for more fragments, the post added. Read More…
