By Moya Zhao
On Sunday, there were reported light flashes as well as what witnesses described as loud banging. Following this, Norwegian police stated that they received many emergency calls, though none of which were for injuries or deaths. A team of experts is hunting for the meteorite, and though nothing is confirmed, expect it to have landed near the capital, Oslo.
A meteor is a rock from space that burns and moves at a high speed after entering the earth’s atmosphere, if it makes it onto earth, it is then called a meteorite.
The Norwegein Meteor Network says the fireball was apparent for around five seconds and appeared at about 2:00 local time. The meteor was traveling at the speed of 16.3km/s and was seen in large parts of Scandinavia.
Astronomer Vegard Rekaa has told BBC that his wife could hear “shaking in the air,” as she was awake at the time, and an explosion occurred as well that was presumably like something incredibly heavy had fallen from the sky. After waking up, Rekaa stated that he saw amazing video footage of the meteorite and was astonished as these were very rare in Norway and anywhere in the world at that.
In the beginning, researchers suspected that the meteorite landed on a wooded area called Finnemarka, which is about 60km away from Oslo. One of the campers reported “a large explosion over their heads” while another camper said she saw a fireball from a short distance, though she didn’t take it seriously.
After analyzing the meteorite, scientists suggest that it could’ve weighed as much as 10kg. This isn’t necessarily a large meteorite but the amount of people who had seen or heard it was already quite shocking.
Rekaa said that the meteorite passed through Mars and Jupiter as it hit earth’s asteroid belt and many say that though it wasn’t dangerous, it was creepy. This was a rather lucky meteorite as there were no reported deaths, and it is only more shocking when you consider how rare meteorites are in general.
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