I didn’t see it myself but there were hundreds of reports last night of a very bright fireball over Ireland and the UK at around 9pm. Here is an example video of the phenomenon:
Quite a few people have asked me today what this object, most people assuming that it was space junk coming back down to Earth. I gave the most accurate answer possible which is that I didn’t know, but I thought that to be that bright it would have to be quite large and if it were that large a bit of space debris we would (a) know what it was and (b) it seemed to me that it would probably have broken up a bit more. While that seemed to rule out, e.g. a rogue bit of one of Elon Musk’s constellations , I am not an expert and thought I could well be wrong.
Anyway, the Jury has now returned to deliver a verdict. After collating and cross-referencing all the reports from tracking stations, the UK Meteor Observation Network is now 100% convinced that it was a meteor (rather than space debris). Its trajectory took it in a roughly north-westerly direction, passing directly over Belfast, and it came down in the Atlantic somewhere near the Hebrides.
There is enough data about this object to infer its orbit of the asteroid of which it was originally part: Semi-major axis 1.36A.U., eccentricity 0.33, inclination 8.77°, Period 1.59Y, LA Sun 171.72°, last Perihelion 2021-03-24.
All the relevant data can be downloaded here.
I hope this clarifies the situation.
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In the Dark 