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A blazing fireball lit up the night sky with the brightness of “100 full moons” earlier this month prompting a frantic search to find fragments of the meteorite which was so bright it was thought to have weighed at least 100kg.
Footage captured by the Aurora Borealis Live Stream feed capture the spectacular event which took place in Arctic Finland.
In the video, the night can be seen almost being turned in to day with flashes of bright lights.
Tomas Kohout of the University of Helsinki’s physics department said that the fireball “seems to have been one of the brightest ones” and produced a blast which could be seen all the way in northern Norway and in Russia’s Kola peninsula.
Now, the experts say that they are on the search for the fallen meteorite.
Mr Kohout said: “We believe it didn’t disintegrate but reached a remote corner of Finland.”
However, the search will be difficult as during winter, Arctic Finland only gets about four hours of daylight per day. Mr Kohour said: “Right now we don’t have much daylight”.
But the finding could be invaluable.
Mr Kohout said: “We are happy to recover it since this is a unique opportunity to get otherwise inaccessible space material.
“This is why it is worth it to search for them.”
The Norwegian meteorite network said the fireball “had the glow of 100 full moons” and said that it was likely travelling in a north-east direction, perhaps “to the Norwegian peninsula of Varanger,” where the borders of Norway, Russia and Finland meet.