It’s not every day that a meteorite uses Earth’s atmosphere as a trampoline, and it’s even rarer to catch it happening on camera.
‘Earthgrazers’ are small meteorites that bounce off the Earth’s atmosphere. According to the European Space Agency, only a handful are recorded every year, and luckily, in September, a camera happened to be pointing at exactly the right bit of sky to catch one in action.
The meteroid, which skipped past Earth on September 22, was spotted in the skies above northern Germany and the Netherlands. Astronomers say that the mini meteor made it as low as 56 miles above the Earth in altitude – lower than any satellite – on its brief visit before heading off back into space.
A video posted by the Global Meteor Network shows the meteor making a low swoop across the night sky, giving us a unique look at the trajectory of ‘Earthgrazers’, which resemble skimming stones across a lake.
Universe Today reports that scientists have traced this particular Earthgrazer back to a family of meteorites in Jupiter’s orbit, but found no conclusive parent body. This isn’t exactly surprising, as tracing meteorites back to their original source is an incredibly difficult task. Of the tens of thousands of meteorites that have made it through Earth’s atmosphere to actually land on the planet, only 40 have ever had their parental asteroid conclusively identified.
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