Berlin and the asteroid

[Paul Nuttall]

https://www.space.com/scientists-discov ... pccro9hgqk

For only the eighth time in history, scientists detected an asteroid before it made its fiery appearance over Earth. The tiny fireball exploded near Berlin early on Jan. 21.

In the wee morning hours on Sunday (Jan. 21), a tiny asteroid came hurtling through the sky and smashed into Earth's atmosphere near Berlin, producing a bright but harmless fireball visible for miles around. Such sightings typically occur a few times a year — but this one was unique because it was first detected by scientists roughly three hours before impact — only the eighth time that researchers have spotted one of these space rocks before it hit.

The asteroid, dubbed 2024 BXI, was first discovered by self-proclaimed asteroid hunter Krisztián Sárneczky, an astronomer at the Piszkéstető Mountain Station, part of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary. He identified the cosmic rock using the 60-cm Schmidt telescope at the observatory. Shortly after the space rock's discovery, NASA gave a detailed prediction of where and when the meteor would strike.

"Heads Up: A tiny asteroid will disintegrate as a harmless fireball west of Berlin near Nennhausen shortly at 1:32am CET. Overseers will see it if it's clear!" NASA tweeted on the night of Jan. 20.

A live camera in the city of Leipzig in northern Germany caught footage of the exceptionally bright meteor, watching it appear and disappear in the span of a few seconds. The asteroid, which measured an estimated 3.3 feet (1 meter) wide before impact, likely started to disintegrate around 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Berlin and "probably dropped some meteorites on the ground" along the way, Denis Vida, a postdoctoral associate in meteor physics at Western University in Canada, told CBS News.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Well spotted !!

Berlin and the Bolide ??

I suppose we should be glad this blew in over Germany as, not too far to East, could be horribly misconstrued...