Near-Earth objects and close calls

[sToRmR1dR]

Bright fireball captured streaking in the sky above Spain and Morocco.

Published on Nov 18, 2025 (2:13)

 

[sToRmR1dR]

A bright fireball lit up the night sky over the Gulf of Cádiz, Spain.

Published on Nov 20, 2025 (1:54)

 

[Nienna]

Is it just me, or are there a lot of fireballs falling over Spain recently?

 

[Gaby]

Is it just me, or are there a lot of fireballs falling over Spain recently?

I think they just have a very good system, with cameras monitoring their skies and several accounts (youtube, twitter, etc). Meteroides.net is always filming and reporting trajectories of bolides and the like in their skies. They're very well organized, with people sending them their films. It creates a bias of fireballs over Spain. Before used to be Puerto Rico, but during the last years, they either closed shop or their system is not as good as it used to.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

A bright fireball lit up the night sky over the Extremadura, Spain.

Published on Nov 20, 2025 (2:03)

 

[Puma]

Meteor in Puerto Rico.

Impressive daytime meteor at 6:15 p.m. A bright meteor was seen this Sunday from across the island looking eastward, according to the Caribbean Astronomy Society (SAC). Several witnesses claim to have heard a sound or boom several seconds later.​

https://twitter.com/x/status/1992740503193108485

 

[thorbiorn]

It's a hit for James McCanney, who is being talking and writing about the censorship and restrictions for decades.

He explains it in this video with relation to the 3I/ATLAS passage of Mars.

They're very well organized, with people sending them their films. It creates a bias of fireballs over Spain. Before used to be Puerto Rico, but during the last years, they either closed shop or their system is not as good as it used to.

Another aspect is the number of hours with sunshine, which is representative of the hours that one can observe stars. From this site, there is:

 

[thorbiorn]

The CNEOS list has 30 entries for 2025. Often there have been 35+- per year, so pretty normal assuming honest counting, also in previous years.

 

[Eboard10]

At 8:54 p.m. of yesterday evening, a meteor streaked across the skies of northern Italy for about 9 seconds, going from east to west.

https://fb.watch/DTHG5uJoK0

 

[sToRmR1dR]

A bright fireball lit up the night sky over the Brazilian states of Ceará, Paraíba and Pernambuco.

Published on Dec 9, 2025 (2:24)

 

[sToRmR1dR]

A bright fireball lit up the night sky over the Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Published on Dec 16, 2025 (3:39)

 

[sToRmR1dR]

A bright fireball lit up the night sky over the Toledo, Spain.

Published on Dec 22, 2025 (1:56)

 

[Gaby]

Close calls, but still non-zero possibility of getting hit. The danger comes from comets and their indirect effects in the solar system.

xras.ru

The largest kilometer-sized asteroid in the last year will fly by on February 14 at a safe distance from Earth.

Asteroid 162882 (2001 FD58) with a size close to 1 km (the estimate is in the range from 0.5 to 1 km), will pass on Saturday, February 14 at a distance of several million kilometers from Earth. The object is the largest that has flown over the past year in a zone with a radius of 7.5 million kilometers around the planet, hitting which automatically classifies the body as potentially dangerous. At the same time, the asteroid does not pose a real threat to the Earth and stands out solely by its size. The probability of a body colliding with a planet is considered to be zero.

The nearest large object, which, according to estimates by the European Space Agency, has a non—zero probability of falling to Earth, is the asteroid 2017 SH33, also with a size of about 1 kilometer, for which, according to simulation results, there is about 1 chance in 150 million to fall to Earth on April 30 this year.

According to the same data, the 10-meter stone 2013 TP4 has the highest probability of colliding with the planet this year. With a 1 in about 45,000 chance, this could happen on October 1, 2026. However, closer to the X hour, this probability is also likely to decrease to the level of statistical error.

The greatest danger to the Earth this year, as always, will be random objects arriving from the far reaches of the Solar System and being discovered for the first time. An example of such an object would be 3I/ATLAS, a body over 1 km in size that was discovered just 5 months before its closest approach to Earth. This shows well how unexpectedly objects can appear, even of such a large size, and how little time the planet has left to respond to the threat of a collision if it suddenly turns out to be real.

The largest meteorites that fell to Earth, leading to mass extinction of species and changes in geological epochs, are believed to have been 10-20 km in size. For comparison, the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite was about 20 meters, and the size of the fireball observed north of Moscow on October 27 last year (Лаборатория солнечной астрономии (XRAS) ), about 1 meter.

 

[Ca.]

Avi Loeb, a Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University, studies interstellar objects and estimates the interstellar dust related to his research.

Feb 11, 2026
A Swarm of 35-Million Interstellar Objects Was Just Discovered Within the Earth’s Orbit Around the Sun.

• Session 3 August 1996​

  • A: Ok, change of direction: Oort cloud and comet cluster and sun twin occasionally passing through the former like a bowling ball through pins.
  • Q: (L) How does the dark star passing through the Oort cloud relate to the comet cluster?
  • Q: (L) So, the comet cluster is caused by the dark star smashing through the Oort cloud? (T) Well, not necessarily smashing, but passing close enough for its gravity to change things... (L) But they said "like a bowling ball through pins." (T) The gravity of that star would cause the comets to be flung in all directions. (J) Is the earth like a pin? A bowling pin? (L) No, that's the Oort Cloud
• 
  
• Session 6 February 2016
  • Q: (T) We learned about a "comet cluster" very early on. Now you are going beyond that and giving us a reason as to why this comet cluster...
  • A: And we have spoken of the comet cluster before, and we have told you that this time, it rides the Wave.
  • A: Yes. This time. You have had the comet cluster before in antiquity, but the wave was last here aeons ago.
  • Q: (L) Okay, we have the 3600 year comet cluster cycle, the Sun twin is another cycle altogether, and then we have the wave, which is a Grand Cycle. So, we have three things causing a transition in nature?
  • Q: (Pierre) I wanted a confirmation. But to me, we are right now experiencing this sequence of events, or at least a cluster of them. And perhaps, actually beginning with the “explosion in Ukraine”, which took a more drastic turn with the altered timeline we discussed last session.

What's Up: February 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA

Jan 30, 2026
0:00 Intro
0:14 Artemis II launch window opens
0:45 Orion the Hunter
1:23 A planetary parade
2:05 February Moon phases
Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What's Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://science.nasa.gov/skywatching/....

Comets Visible in February​

By Pepe Chambó, Monday, February 9, 2026

Cometas Visibles en Febrero - Cometografía

El cometa C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos) reaparece tras el perihelio más brillante de lo esperado: en torno a la magnitud 7 y con una llamativa cola...

cometografia.es

Dialog In Spanish

 

[Gaby]

Avi Loeb, a Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University, studies interstellar objects and estimates the interstellar dust related to his research.

For as much as I love the news item, that guy is completely compromised. I wouldn't be surprised if the possibility "it's aliens!" is brought up. Very dubious source.