By BlueShift and AFP | 2025-10-02

With assistance from amateur photos, video and an on-the-ground search, scientists have gained insight into how an asteroid travelled from space, broke up in Earth's atmosphere and sent fiery fragments shooting to the ground.

Small asteroid 2023 CX1 was detected in space and predicted to impact over Normandy, France, on February 13, 2023, according to a Nature Astronomy study published September 17.

Observations from several independent sensors revealed an unusual and potentially high-risk fragmentation behavior, it said.

Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky spotted the asteroid from the country's Piszkéstető Station, just seven hours before it hit Earth's atmosphere over France.

Between the time of the sighting and the time of the asteroid's disintegration, scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency were able to accurately calculate the location and timeline of its descent.

Observatories around the world then joined forces to study every aspect of its journey, using a range of scientific instruments.

Enthusiasts aid in search

Professional and amateur astronomers from France's FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel network were among those taking part in the investigation, which gathered new information about how asteriods disintegrate.

The FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel network works to detect and collect meteorites, the fragments of asteroids that make it to the ground.

"We received dozens of photos and videos" of the asteroid's seconds-long journey through the atmosphere, said meteorite specialist Brigitte Zanda of France's National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the network.

These images, including some posted on social media, allowed scientists to observe the asteroid's disintegration with "unmatched precision," Zanda said.

In particular, there was an "extremely useful video showing the object fragmenting, which lets us see how many pieces it broke into -- and how this happened," she said.

Amateur astronomers have contributed to previous space-related discoveries, including by helping to trace the trajectory of an interstellar object, designated 3I/ATLAS, discovered in July by a Chile-based observatory.

The first meteorite from the 2023 CX1 asteroid, of around a dozen collected, was found in the northwestern French commune of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger, with the help of local residents.

To date, only 11 asteroids have been detected before impact -- and meteorites were only recovered from four of them, according to the study.

An unusual observation

2023 CX1 likely broke off from a larger rock in the Massalia asteroid family in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, per the study.

As the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere, it disintegrated "very brutally in two stages" around 28km above our planet, Zanda said. During the process, it lost 98% of its mass, and released a huge amount of energy.

"This is maybe only the second time we have observed fragmentation like this," Zanda said. "It probably depends on the speed, angle of impact and internal structure of the rock."

None of the fiery meteorites that made it to Earth damaged anything.

But simulations showed this kind of fragmentation has the potential to cause more damage than a more gradual disintegration, such as the way a much-bigger asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013.

As that asteroid descended, "there were five successive fragments, each releasing a small amount of energy," Zanda said.

Yet the resulting shockwave still shattered windows across the city, injuring more than 1,000 people.

The European Space Agency's Flyeye telescope began its its work in May, from an observatory in Sicily, to scan for asteroids or comets that might pose a threat to Earth.

The telescope's wide field of vision is inspired by the compound eye of a fly.