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Meteorite over Luxembourg was over a metre long, says ESA’s Dr Richard Moissl

Dr Richard Moissl, Planetary Defense Officer at the European Space Agency, said the meteorite which was spotted across Luxembourg and Germany on Sunday night was not of insignificant size: “Through the visible trail, the condensation trail in the sky, the long duration of light and the reports of audible effects, it quickly became clear that this was not a small meteorite. A colleague of mine said he has seen fireballs in the sky before, but this was much bigger. We estimate the object was over a metre long, in the low single-digit metre range in diameter.”

A meteorite like Sunday’s falls roughly once a year, or every few years. The size of it alone means it is relatively rare. However, in spite of the excitement, in Koblenz pieces of the meteorite landed on a building. Is this dangerous and should the public be warned?
“We classify them as dangerous when they’re more than 10 metres – that’s when these meteorites can cause significant damage to buildings, when they are larger masses. The time and direction from which this meteorite came made it difficult to find, as it was after sunset and from a south-westerly direction. We need to clarify if we could have found it, or if it came too far from the daylight-side of the Earth, which means we weren’t able to spot it in time due to the sun’s rays.”
A similar example occurred in Russia in 2013, when a meteorite landed in Chelyabinsk that February. No one saw that one coming either.

If experts had seen the meteorite coming they could have sent a message to the public. The ESA is currently in the process of developing an early warning system for space under the name ‘Neomir'. This will consist of a space telescope which will patrol between the Earth and the sun, to detect objects travelling towards Earth, said Dr Richard Moissl. Dr Moissl said he was not a legal expert but in theory, if the meteorite is accessible, then it belongs to whoever finds it. If it is buried in the ground, however, then it belongs to the owner of the land, according to German law.

Also today

• A fifth repatriation flight carrying European nationals from the Middle East arrived in Brussels on Monday following a joint evacuation operation involving Luxembourg and Belgium
• A large quantity of oil leaked from the harbour basin into the Moselle River on Sunday evening near Mertert.
• The Fund for the Urbanisation and Development of Kirchberg has been tasked with urbanising the so-called Midfield area between Cloche d’Or and Howald, where a new district with housing, jobs, and public spaces is planned.
• The Iran war has sent oil prices spiralling above $100 a barrel after Tehran, under new leader Mojtaba Khamanei, fired a new barrage of missiles at Israel and its crude-exporting Gulf neighbours
• North Korea has abruptly cancelled an international marathon originally scheduled for early next month, a tour operator said Monday, citing an official statement with no explanation for the decision.
• President Emmanuel Macron has discussed regional security with the leaders of Cyprus and Greece and was later set to board France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier deployed to the Mediterranean.

On air

John Rech from Op Der Schmelz visited the studio to talk about the upcoming Celtic festival happening in Dudelande 12-15 March!

Figure of the day

Hundreds of thousands of people are at imminent risk from a government offensive in a South Sudan town, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Monday, after NGOs were ordered to evacuate.

• MSF said it pulled out of Akobo in Jonglei state on Saturday and its facilities were looted, a day after the army ordered foreign agencies to leave. Jonglei has been the focus of clashes between government and opposition forces since December, displacing at least 280,000 people, as a power-sharing agreement between President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival Riek Machar has broken down.
• The United Nations told AFP it had not complied with the order to leave. “Our peacekeepers are maintaining their presence in Akobo and continuing to carry out their mandated responsibilities,” said Priyanka Chowdhury, spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan.
  

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