The Sky is Falling Over Great Britain!

Nearly 900 reports from Great Britain and surrounding areas

Only five days after a brilliant fireball startled observers in Great Britain, another fireball has occurred with a very similar trajectory to the previous event. The AMS/IMO have received nearly 900 reports so far about a fireball event that occurred over southern England on May 16th, 2022 at 9:44 PM BST* (20:44 Universal Time). IMO #2022-2921 event was mainly seen from England and Wales (UK) but we also received reports from France, The Netherlands and Guernsey.

*BST = British Summer Time

The ground trajectory computed from the witness reports shows that the meteor was traveling from South West to North East and ended its visible flight over southern England.

Photos and Videos

Below are displayed a few pictures from FRIPON video network and videos captured by public. Estimated magnitude is close to -8.

Fireball, Bolide?

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.

Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about one fireball of magnitude -6 (crescent moon) or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 (Venus) can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.