French Astronomers Locate Chunk of New Meteoroid

Vigil Ciel astronomers with their discovery. (Image: FRIPON/Second-Ciel) A group of amateur and professional astronomers have recovered a fragment of a meteoroid that landed in northern France. Originally spotted Sunday night by the European Space Agency (ESA), the meteoroid safely struck Earth hours later, wedging itself into a field in Normandy.

News of the meteoroid’s celestial sighting spread quickly after it blazed across the sky. Geographer and meteor hunter Krisztián Sárneczky noticed the meteoroid (referred to as 2023 CX1) as he peered through a 2-foot telescope at Hungary’s Konkoly Observatory’s Piszkéstető Station. Sárneczky informed the ESA, which immediately began tracking the meteoroid. Just minutes before 2023 CX1 struck Earth, the ESA tweeted that it could be expected to land near northern France.

Now a group of astronomers from that region have earned the boast of a lifetime. Vigie Ciel, a meteor-tracking organization made up of enthusiasts from various professional stripes, had begun searching for fragments of 2023 CX1 soon after it was thought to have landed. The organization says an 18-year-old member by the name of Lois Leblanc saw a “dark stone” in a field just outside of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger. Upon analyzing Leblanc’s find, the group confirmed it was a chunk of 2023 CX1.

Lois Leblanc. (Image: FRIPON/Second-Ciel)

The discovery was anything but random. The ESA’s pointer offered Vigie Ciel a great foundation to calculate its approximate landing location. 2023 CX1’s estimated mass (1.5 tons) and speed (14.5 kilometers per second) also allowed the group to predict whether fragments of the meteoroid would have survived.

Because the meteoroid is estimated to have been about one meter in size, we don’t know whether other fragments are waiting to be found. Vigie Ciel says that hopeful space rock hunters should peruse the area between the towns of Dieppe and Doudeville. Chunks of meteoroids are known for their dark, flat faces with sharp angles between them, which are a result of fragmentation. They could also have crusts or burn marks from entering the atmosphere. Those who find a potential meteoroid fragment should handle the rock with gloves or a piece of tissue and avoid magnets due to their high iron content.

So far, Vigie Ciel has not said what they will do with the fragment they found.

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