Isabella Kwai
03/02/2021 8:58 AM
Clarín.com
The New York Times International Weekly
Updated 03/02/2021 8:58 AM
LONDON - It was as brief as it was brilliant.
For seven seconds, people across Britain who happened to be looking at the sky shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday were able to see a fireball that lit up the sky.
A witness on Twitter described "a huge flash" that "exploded in a huge tail of orange sparks trailing behind like a gigantic firework."
Images captured by security cameras across England, in places like Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire and Solihull, showed the meteorite
glowing brighter and brighter
as it streaked across the sky before disintegrating.
The bright flash of light is emitted when an object in space - from something as small as a grain of sand to a giant like an asteroid - passes through Earth's atmosphere and
begins to burn.
While millions of people may "wish for a star" when they see the incredible light show in the sky, they are actually wishing for a meteor.
If something survives the trip and lands on Earth, it is known as a meteorite.
Richard Kacerek, co-founder of the UK Meteorite Network, a group of amateur meteor watchers, said his cameras detected it at 9:54 p.m. in Wiltshire, England.
"We think it's a
piece of a comet
or something softer like an asteroid that hit the atmosphere," he said.
In this case, the fireball appeared to be moving slowly, he said, meaning it was visible for the longest time in the sky.
However, some people reported hearing a
sonic boom
, suggesting that it was a
relatively large
object
traveling at high speed as it approached Earth.
"In the second half of the flight, we could see different pieces fall off," he said, and it was possible that some of them had survived as meteorites.
Hundreds of people from across England and northern Scotland and Northern Ireland reported to the network that they had seen the meteorite, Kacerek said.
For amateur astronomers, the sight of a meteor streaking across the sky is not particularly rare: about
three or four
appear a
year.
However, at this time of year, the full moon makes meteorites harder to see, Kacerek said.
"This was an exception. It was a very, very bright meteorite, which
surpassed the brightness of the moon."
For those who were not paying attention, the meteorite was a pleasant surprise.
"It's always an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime event to see a very bright ball of fire, unless you're like us and you're watching and watching for them," Kacerek said.
"For normal witnesses witnessing something like this is definitely an event."
c.2021 The New York Times Company
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