Romanian astronomers involved in the scientific characterization of asteroid 2023CX1

On the night of February 12, 2023, a small asteroid on approach to Earth was discovered at the Piszkéstető station of the Konkoly Observatory in Hungary. Later named 2023 CX1, it was forecast to strike over Normandy only a few hours after discovery.

Rapid alerts from ESA and NASA, amplified by the International Meteor Organization and the FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel project, mobilized professional and citizen observers across Europe. During the next hours, observers pointed the telescopes and cameras to either track it in space or during its atmospheric entry, as displayed in the figure.

For the first time, a fireball was watched in a fully targeted way from sky to ground, yielding a rich set of optical, infrasound, and seismic records that quickly narrowed the meteorites fall area. For this, public participation was had a decisive benefit: the first meteorites were recovered promptly and many subsequent finds came from volunteers.

The 2023CX1 Consortium, which also includes four astronomers working at the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, has worked together to reconstruct the entire impact from source origin to object properties, and implications. Interestingly, the fragmentation of this object produced a spherical shockwave and pushed energy closer to the ground compared to a typical, gradual breakup. This has implications for planetary defence, from faster public notifications to considering targeted evacuations when incoming material appears L-chondrite-like.

The complete article can be found in Nature Astronomy.
Catastrophic disruption of asteroid 2023 CX1 and implications for planetary defence, authors: A. Egal, D. Vida, F. Colas, et al

The fall and recovery of 2023 CX1:

Published on: Sep 17, 2025