The FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel network allows to find a fragment of the asteroid 2023 CX1 fallen on Monday February 13, 2023, in Normandy. This new meteorite is the third in history to have been detected in space, before its entry in the atmosphere, and the first one found in France thanks to the FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel network.
Following the observation of a bolide in the sky of Normandy, on Monday February 13, 2023 at 3:59 am, the FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel team quickly mobilized its network of correspondents to set up a field search for the object.
A first team of researchers and passionate amateurs was able to meet on the ground, as of the following day, in the zone of fall circumscribed by an international scientific team see article.
In the event of a meteorite fall, the protocol is well broken in : information to the inhabitants, requests for authorizations to access the land, meeting with the mayors, locating favorable land and initial research on the ground...
Thus, on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, at 4:47 pm, Loïs Leblanc, 18 years old, art school student and member of the team, is attracted by a dark stone barely touching the ground, in a field of the commune of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger (Seine Maritime). Rapid analysis on the ground confirms that it is indeed the meteorite sought.
Note that the last meteorite found on French territory was the one from Draveil in 2011. The collection of this new sample also comes, day for day, ten years after the historic fall of Cheliabinsk.
Further research, involving the local population and associations of the region, is being organized to find other fragments of this meteorite.
[List of participants involved in the field, at the origin of this discovery :
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About FRIPON/Vigie-ciel }
FRIPON/Vigie-ciel is a participatory science project led by the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, the Observatoire de Paris - PSL, the Université Paris-Saclay and the OSU-Pytheas.
Its objectives are the scientific research on meteors, meteorites and impact craters by involving citizens.
FRIPON (Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network), funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) is a network aiming at tracing the origin of extraterrestrial material falling on Earth.
Composed of cameras and radio receivers, it monitors the sky 24 hours a day and detects meteorite falls in France. Scientists have installed 100 cameras in the four corners of France. Located on the roofs of professional or amateur observatories, universities or even museums, they film the celestial vault at 360° day and night ! Each camera is connected to a computer equipped with a software called FreeTure. By analyzing the images, it detects the luminous events caused by the entry in the atmosphere of a meteor.