Impressive Fireball Over Southern England 9 April 2022

71 reports from 4 countries in Europe

The International Meteor Organization has received 71 reports so far of a fireball event that occurred over southern England on 9 April 2022 around 02:38 GMT. Event 2022-2248 was mainly seen from England, but we also received reports from Ireland, Wales, France and Northern Ireland. The preliminary trajectory indicates a southwest to northeast path starting over the English Channel near Weymouth. The ending point was near the town of Fareham, between Southampton and Portsmouth.

Ground trajectory and Heatmap of witnesses that reported their observation of 9 April 2022, 02h 38min UT fireball (Event #2248-2022) over England and surronding areas. Blue arrow is the automated calculated trajectory of the fireball deduced from these observations. Credit: IMO

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Photos and Videos

The 9 April, 2022, 02h38 UT fireball photographed by Neil C. from Osmington Mills (UK). Credit: Neil C.

Fireball, Bolide?

Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.

Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.