Asteroid explodes over English Channel in historic moment

An asteroid has exploded in the night's sky as it passed over the English Channel.

Footage uploaded to social media shows the small celestial object becoming a bright light before almost turning night to day.

The Mirror says the asteroid is only one-metre in size and has been called Sar2667.

The reason why this one was so bright in the sky was because it caused an 'airburst'.

That's what happens when a meteoroid hits Earth's atmosphere with such immense pressure that it rapidly compresses the air that is in its path.

This creates ram pressure, which is when the air in front of the meteoroid gets compressed and causes the temperature to skyrocket.

🚨ATTENTION! A small asteroid is expected to safely impact the French-English channel in ~4 hours time, 03:00:03 UT tomorrow. Object size is around ~1 meter and should appear as bright as the Moon momentarily as it enters the atmosphere. Approx visibility circle posted below. 1/ pic.twitter.com/Ckh5OBsz4l

— Tom Williams (@tw__astro) February 12, 2023

Officials say due to the size of the asteroid, it was able to be seen from as far north in the UK as Bristol and Cardiff as and as far south in France as Tours in the country's centre.

People in Belgium and the Netherlands would have also been able to see it in some capacity.

Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist and airburst specialist Mark Boslough told Wales Online that these types of events are 'rarely discovered in advance'.

He said they happen a few times a year, but most go unnoticed because people aren't waiting around to capture them.