A meteor was seen over France on the night of Sunday 5 to Monday 6 September 2021. Various testimonies and observations from several stations made it possible to retrace its trajectory in the sky.
It was 11:47 p.m. on September 5, 2021, when a racing car crossed the sky. The very bright object could be observed from part of France, in the North-West, details the participatory science project Vigie-Ciel on his site. Thanks to the various testimonies, as well as to the observations of several stations, several spectacular images of the passage of this bolide could be obtained, even if the sky was cloudy.
☄️ Certainly the most spectacular images of the #meteorite of that night that I was able to find! Webcam located at the port of Arzal.#meteor #meteorite #bolide @VigieCiel pic.twitter.com/wXbitRBdVz
– Thibaut Ponamalé (@TPonamale) September 6, 2021
Bolide, meteor, meteorite?
If some Internet users have been able to speak of a meteorite to designate this phenomenon, we should rather speak the car. Vigie-Ciel recalls the distinction between the different terms which can sometimes be confused:
- a fireball is a meteor, very bright, which takes the appearance of a fireball.
- a meteor indicates the luminous phenomenon caused by the fall of a solid body coming from space, in the atmosphere of our planet. We also speak of a shooting star.
- a meteoroid is a solid body that moves in space, often quite small (a few millimeters to a few tens of centimeters in diameter). If the meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it causes a meteor; if it is massive enough, it can cause a meteorite (part of the object resistant to entry into the atmosphere).
- A meteorite refers to the fragment of a meteoroid after it has fallen to Earth.
Here, as summarized by astronomer Eric Lagadec on Twitter, it is indeed ” a ‘pebble’ from space [qui] warmed up as it entered Earth’s atmosphere, creating this spectacular flash ».
The trajectory of the object has gradually been able to be determined: it passed over Brittany, then over the English Channel – it seems that the object has finished its course in the water, which unfortunately limits the hope to find it, if it was ever a meteorite.
How to testify if you have seen it
Did you have the chance to see this racing car? You can share your own report of the event on the Vigie-Ciel website, by completing a form – it is not necessary to know in astronomy to complete it. Your testimony can enrich a map indicating where the various visual witnesses of the car were located.
The form remains accessible in the future, to anyone who wishes to share the observation of a shining object in the sky, similar to a shooting star, which could in fact correspond to the description of a racing car.
