Hungarian astronomer discovered a small asteroid on March 11. Less than two hours later, the object entered the Earth’s atmosphere near Iceland. This is the fifth discovery of an asteroid that subsequently entered our planet’s atmosphere.
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A three-meter-long asteroid named 2022 EB5 entered the Earth’s atmosphere north of Iceland near Jan Mayen Island on March 11 at 22:22.
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Earlier, around On the same day, the object was spotted by astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky from the Piszkéstető Observatory in northern Hungary at 20.30. According to estimates, the asteroid was traveling at a speed of about 18.5 kilometers per second.
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As astronomer Tony Dunn of San Francisco State University tweeted, this is the fifth asteroid discovered before entering Earth’s atmosphere. The others are: 2012 AA, 2018 LA, 2002 TC3 and 2019 MO (the first part of the name informs about the year when this event occurred). The astronomical organization International Meteor Organization also informed about it on its website.
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It burned down in the Earth’s atmosphere
The organization is looking for people who may have witnessed a meteor, i.e. a glowing trail formed as a result of an asteroid’s flight through the atmosphere. Several people in Iceland reported seeing a bright flash in the sky.
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A so-called fireball is created when a cosmic object of this type burns due to increasing temperature. If the object does not burn completely, and its fragments fall to the surface of the planet, then we can speak of a meteorite. In this case, this did not happen. The asteroid did not survive the encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere.
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photo-source">Main photo source: Shutterstock
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