The first hours of February 13 saw a space visitor strike Earth! You read it right! It is a small asteroid between 1 meter and 2 meters wide. The asteroid known as Asteroid 2023 CX1 hit Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in a bright flash that made it appear brighter than the Moon. The event happened in the English Channel. The ESA reported the asteroid just before it entered Earth’s atmosphere in northern France early this morning. “Only the 7th time an asteroid collision has been predicted – but a sign of rapid advances in global detection!” ESA tweeted triumphantly. Asteroid 2023 CX1 is moving at an amazing speed of 18 km/s.
What is surprising is that Asteroid 2023 CX1 was discovered on February 12, 2023. This near-Earth object belongs to the Aten group and makes an orbit around the Earth. Sun for 281 days, thesky.org reported. The aphelion (the farthest point from the Sun) of the orbit of asteroid 2023 CX1 is 152 million km and the perihelion (the point closest to the Sun) is 99 million km. Thankfully, this asteroid impact did not harm Earth.
Several people witnessed the event. An individual claiming to have watched the event took to Twitter, describing small planet as having “lighted up the sky with a spectacular flash of pink.” Another added: “I just stood by the window and turned on my phone. I wasn’t expecting much but it was really cool.”
The special thing about this asteroid
According to Mark Boslough, a physicist and gas explosion expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory, “gas explosions of this magnitude occur somewhere on Earth.” Earth several times a year,” a Weather.com report mentioned, adding that this is only the seventh instance in recorded history that an asteroid has been detected before entering the atmosphere. Earth. The asteroid previously forecast to enter Earth’s atmosphere was observed in the skies above Ontario, Canada last November. Also, this is the first time a collision has occurred.” over a densely populated area with enough alerts to get data”.
