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The early hours of February 13th saw a cosmic visitor hit Earth! Yes, you read that right! It was a small 1-meter-to-2-meter wide asteroid. The asteroid known as Asteroid 2023 CX1 hit Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in a blazing flash that made it appear brighter than the Moon. The event occurred in the English Channel. ESA reported this asteroid just before it entered Earth’s atmosphere over northern France early this morning. “Only the 7th time an asteroid impact has been predicted – but a sign of the rapid advances in global detection capabilities!” ESA tweeted triumphantly. Asteroid 2023 CX1 was travelling at a mind-boggling speed of 18 kilometers per second.
Surprisingly, Asteroid 2023 CX1 was discovered on February 12, 2023. This near-Earth object belongs to the Aten group and makes one orbit around the Sun in 281 days, thesky.org reported. The aphelion (farthest point from the Sun) of the asteroid 2023 CX1 orbits is 152 million kilometers, and the perihelion (nearest point to the Sun) is 99 million kilometers. Thankfully, this asteroid collision has caused no harm on Earth.
Several people witnessed the event. An individual claiming to have seen the event took to Twitter, describing the asteroid as having “lit up the sky with a pink flash which was spectacular.” Another person added, “I just stood at my window and turned on my phone. I wasn’t expecting much but it really was amazing.”
What’s special about this asteroid
According to Mark Boslough, a physicist and airburst specialist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, “airbursts of this magnitude occur somewhere on Earth several times a year,” a Weather. com report mentioned. He added that this is only the seventh instance in recorded history where an asteroid was detected before entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The previous asteroid that was forecast to enter the Earth’s atmosphere was observed in the skies over Ontario, Canada in November of the previous year. Also, this is the first time when a collision happened “over a populated area with enough warning to get data”.
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