Watch: Asteroid Explodes Above English Channel, Lights Up Night Sky

Meteor illuminating the night of Paris, France.

According to a BBC report, an asteroid has entered Earth’s atmosphere and has been spotted lighting up the night sky over the English Channel. The shooting star effect occurred at 3 a.m. (local time) on Monday (February 13), the server further said. The small space rock was only one meter wide. The International Meteorological Organization (IMO) said this could be the source of a potential falling meteorite. IMO experts said scientists will try to find fragments of the space rock for future studies.
The impact of the small rock, called Sar2667 according to the BBC, was predicted in advance. This is the seventh time such a prediction has been made, the server added.

US physicist and airburst specialist Mark Boslough of Los Alamos National Laboratory told Wales Online that although “explosions of this size happen somewhere a few times a year”, they are “rarely detected in advance”.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on Twitter that this was “a sign of rapid progress in global asteroid detection capabilities!”

The Manchester Evening News reported that the asteroid explosion was visible from most of southern England and Wales – and as far away as Paris in France.