A shimmering, white light suddenly lit up the skies over the Czech Republic and southern Germany on Tuesday night. As video footage shows, a meteorite burned over the area in question and was sometimes brighter than the full moon.
Above the Czech Republic, the point of light, which fell to the earth’s surface at lightning speed, was particularly visible. The Hydrometereological Institute in Prague has published a video on Twitter showing the meteorite over Pilsen. A webcam filmed the scene above the town in the western Czech Republic.
It is still unclear whether the meteorite has completely burned up or whether rocks from the sky have found their way to Earth.
Cosmic rock bodies with potential for danger
Meteorites come in all different sizes. The cosmic rock is mostly made up of various minerals, iron and nickel, most of which, however, burn up when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the rock bodies produce a luminous phenomenon known as a meteor. The meteorite burns up like a shooting star on its way to Earth, or actually reaches the ground. Depending on their size, they can even cause significant damage.
The biggest catastrophe in recent times caused by a meteorite occurred in 2013 around the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia’s Urals, the blast wave from the explosion of the 12,000-ton piece of rock as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere not only caused significant damage to property – about 1,500 people were also injured, most of them from broken windows. To date, there is only one known case in which a person was proven to have been directly injured by a meteorite: on November 30, 1954, a 11-pound (5.56 kg) meteorite smashed through the roof of a house in the US state of Alabama and impacted Radio slower already, housewife Ann Elizabeth Hodges lying on a couch on her arm and hip. She suffered severe bruises.
Source: Krone
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