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Slow-moving bright fireball over the English Channel

slow-moving-bright-fireball-over-the-english-channel

Featured image: Fireball over the English Channel on September 8, 2019. Credit: UKMON

A bright, slow-moving fireball was recorded over the English Channel at 04:51 UTC on September 8, 2019. The event lasted for more than 7 seconds.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) received 91 reports over the next couple of hours, from people living across England and northern France.

Fireball over the English Channel on September 8, 2019 – heatmap. Credit: AMS

The event sparked police search in Plymouth, looking for a possible plane crash. After deploying helicopters to search the area, the police concluded there had been no plane crash in the area.

"We are as satisfied as we can be that this has not been a light aircraft crash. The expert opinion of trained search officers is that if there had been an aircraft crash, assets in the air would have seen some debris. There have also been a couple of reports from the Cardiff and Dorset areas of people watching meteor showers across the South West," Plymouth police said in a statement.

I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.

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