I was interested to come across the below news item this morning, with its very cool amateur videos of a spectacular fireball over north-west WA last night:
https://www.9news.com.au/world/wa-as...e-9d4d71fc9a77
However the article goes on to say:
Quote:
Astronomers believe it was Asteroid 2002 NN4, which was scheduled to pass Earth at about 11.20pm yesterday.
The asteroid is estimated to be the size of six football fields, with estimated diameter of up to 570 metres, according to the Centre for Near Earth Object Studies.
Despite being clearly visible, the asteroid was about 5.2 million kilometres away from our planet, 13 times further away than the moon, NASA says, so there was no risk of it hitting the Earth.
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Somebody has their wires very crossed - 2002 NN4 passed by Earth on 6th June and for all its size would have been invisible to the naked eye. This event is clearly an atmospheric burn, possibly space junk (the spent kick stage from Rocket Lab's 13th June
Don't Stop Me Now launch perhaps?), although from the colour and lack of obvious fragmentation, it could also have been a nickel-iron meteor, I think.