astronomy
Spectacular spectacle: asteroid burns up near Berlin
An asteroid burned up during the night over Brandenburg as it entered the atmosphere. photo
© Christoph Seidler/DER SPIEGEL/dpa
Burned up in the sky over Brandenburg – a celestial body about one meter wide could be seen at night. Fragments of the asteroid are believed to be in a small community in Havelland.
Nennhausen is located in the Havelland district in Brandenburg. Experts assumed that amateur astronomers and curious people would set out to search for possible remains of the mini asteroid.
According to the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the asteroid with a diameter of around one meter was discovered a few hours earlier by the Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky. The celestial body was given the preliminary name Sar2736, but is now listed as 2024 BX1. In recent years it has been possible several times to identify small asteroids before they burn up in the atmosphere.
At the end of April last year, a fireball lit up over Elmshorn in Schleswig-Holstein. Shortly afterwards, chunks of the meteorite weighing a few hundred grams to several kilograms were found. A meteorite fell in France in mid-February 2023. This asteroid, which is also around one meter in size, had also been noticed a few hours earlier. In the days that followed, about a dozen pieces were found in Normandy.