At 00:27:46 UT on the 7th of July 2024, an earth-grazer meteor was observed travelling from near Innsbruck in Austria to a point 30km north of Gravelines on the French coast. The meteor, travelling at 64km/s, traversed a distance of 841 km in 13.3 seconds at an altitude of between 114 and 102 km, crossing over Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France before returning to space.
The event was detected by 35 cameras from the Global Meteor Network. A number of possible visual sightings were also reported to the IMO[1]. Its also interesting to note that although relative to the Earth’s surface, its track curves down from 117 to 102 km before rising back up to 114km, it is in fact a straight line and the apparent curvature is due to the Earth’s curvature.
Analysis indicates that the meteoroid originated in the Kuiper belt and likely last visited the inner solar system in 1536, the year in which Buenos Aires was founded and Anne Boleyn rose to and fell from power. Full details of the event can be found on the UK Meteor Network’s website[2].
[1] https://ukmon.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2024/3306
[2] https://archive.ukmeteors.co.uk/reports/2024/orbits/202407/20240707/20240707_002746.047_UK/index.html
