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Fireball west of Berlin


On Saturday, January 20, 2024, at 10:48 PM, the Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky discovered a near-Earth asteroid and reported it to the Minor Planet Center, the international hub for observations of small bodies in the solar system. Initial analyses by ESA and NASA suggested that this object, temporarily named Sar2736, could potentially collide with Earth. Further observations provided certainty, and shortly before midnight, it was clear that the asteroid, with a size of approximately 1 meter, would enter Earth's atmosphere at 01:33 AM on January 21, west of Berlin. The asteroid, now officially designated as 2024 BX1, became the eighth object discovered and observed in space before its collision with Earth. The entry into the Earth's atmosphere and the resulting fireball in the sky were recorded by local fireball networks. A network with the name AllSky7, to which the Professorship of Lunar and Planetary Exploration participates, analyzed the observation data and calculated the entry corridor. Initial assessments of the observation data suggest that individual fragments survived the atmospheric entry and could be found as meteorites. For this reason, scientists and amateur astronomers have joined forces and are actively searching for meteorites to then examine their composition in the laboratory. The LPE also participated in the search, which, up to the present moment, has been unsuccessful. (Video Credit: AllSky7, Sirko Molau)