                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2023 February 17

                            2023 CX1 Meteor Flash
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Gijs de Reijke

   Explanation: While scanning the skies for near earth objects Hungarian
   astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky first imaged the meter-sized space rock
   now cataloged as 2023 CX1 on 12 February 2023 at 20:18:07 UTC. That was
   about 7 hours before it impacted planet Earth's atmosphere. Its
   predicted trajectory created a rare opportunity for meteor observers
   and a last minute plan resulted in this spectacular image of the
   fireball, captured from the Netherlands as 2023 CX1 vaporized and broke
   up over northern France. Remarkably it was Sárneczky's second discovery
   of an impacting asteroid, while 2023 CX1 is only the seventh asteroid
   to be detected before being successfully predicted to impact Earth. It
   has recently become the third such object from which meteorites have
   been recovered. This fireball was witnessed almost 10 years to the day
   following the infamous Chelyabinsk Meteor flash.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

