East Sussex resident captures footage of meteoroid lighting up the night sky

Krisztina Almasi-Tucknott Arps filmed the 1m space rock, dubbed Sar2667, travelling across the English Channel and lighting up the sky in the early hours of Monday (February 13) morning.

Krisztina told SussexWorld: “Before 2:45AM I didn't even know it existed. We were in bed, struggling to get to sleep and I was crawling through Facebook and came across a link that mentioned what was an asteroid coming in.

“I didn't believe it would actually be coming round here, you see it on the television, but not on your doorstep. I checked out some news sites and found an observatory that confirmed it to be coming through at 2:59am.

“I didn't think I would be in a position to capture it, I only had my mobile phone, which does not tend to capture great night shots.

“I decided ‘oh what the heck’ I’ll give it a go and so went upstairs and opened our skylight and pointed my camera towards the south east direction.”

On Sunday (February 13), The European Space Agency had tweeted that a meteoroid was expected to "safely strike" the earth's atmosphere near the French city of Rouen.

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Krisztina’s footage shows the object creating a shooting star effect at 2:59AM, as it entered the atmosphere around 2.5 miles away from the French coast.

A number of people across the south coast of England managed to see the meteoroid as it burned in the sky for less then five seconds.

The Seaford resident said: “I was just awe-struck, you see it on the television but I never actually believed I would see that in my own life. Certainly not from my own house, it was quite amazing and quite joyous.”

Asteroids are small rocky objects that orbit the sun, often described as minor planets.

A meteor is what happens when a small piece of an asteroid or comet, called a meteoroid, burns up upon entering Earth's atmosphere.

Sar2667 was just the seventh time in history an asteroid impact has been predicted in advance.

The European Space Agency said the event was ‘a sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities’.