A tiny asteroid burned up near Berlin on Sunday night. The US space agency Nasa’s asteroid monitoring agency had previously announced the fireball at 1:32 a.m. (CET) on Sunday morning near Nennhausen, west of Berlin. Numerous pictures and videos then circulated on social media. Accordingly, the fireball itself could still be seen in Leipzig and Prague.
The asteroid generated numerous comments on the Internet – and curious visitors. Some hobby astronomers and curious people came to Nennhausen to look for possible remains of the mini asteroid. “You can find pieces that are half a meter tall, that can vary quite a lot,” said Professor Lutz Hecht, who researches at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin – the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research. But if it thaws, the search will be difficult on muddy surfaces.
“Like a needle in a haystack”
According to police, the asteroid caused no damage. “We have no notification of this incident,” said the service group leader of the Havelland police station, Petra Ortelt, to the German Press Agency. There are no reports of property damage or injuries. “We were just as surprised by this announcement,” she said. With a view to the search for possible fragments, she emphasized that the area around Nennhausen is very large.
Sandro Huxdorf, who comes from the village, saw the asteroid with his own eyes. “I then wondered why the sky suddenly lit up brightly,” he said. He went looking for remains, but admitted: “It’s like a needle in a haystack.”
After the asteroid burned up, some people indulged in a joke: They took a large stone, painted it black and showed it to others – but there was no remnant of the surprise nighttime visitor from above.
Sar2736 will become BX1 in 2024
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.
According to its own information, a camera at the planetarium and observatory in Demmin in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania recorded a fireball at night. The planetarium wrote on Facebook: “At the moment a group from the meteor observer circle in Brandenburg is looking for the little “stone”.”
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.
