2023 CX1
Key facts
- What it is
- Small asteroid that struck Earth on 13 February 2023
- Size
- About 1 m across
- Discovered
- 2023, by Krisztián Sárneczky in Hungary
- Spacecraft
- Fell over Normandy, France; meteorites recovered
- Orbit group
- Apollo
- Average distance from the Sun
- 1.64 au (about 250 million km)
- Time to go round the Sun
- 2.1 years
- Closest and farthest from the Sun
- 0.92 to 2.35 au
- Tilt of its orbit
- 3.4°
- Closest its orbit comes to Earth's
- 4,600 km (0 times the Moon's distance)
An au (astronomical unit) is Earth's average distance from the Sun, about 150 million km. Orbit figures are from open tracking data, figures last updated 1 Nov 2026.
2023 CX1 was a small asteroid about a metre across that fell over northern France in the early hours of 13 February 2023. It had been spotted less than seven hours earlier by the Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky, using a telescope at the Piszkéstető mountain station in Hungary.
Within minutes of the first measurements, orbit calculations showed that it was on course to enter the atmosphere over the English Channel. Observatories rushed to collect more observations, refining the predicted time and place. At 02:59 universal time it streaked across the sky as a bright fireball over the coast of Normandy, recorded by many cameras on both sides of the Channel, and broke up high in the atmosphere exactly where expected.
Because the fall was predicted so precisely, a search area could be mapped. Members of the public and scientists from a French fireball network joined the search, and on 15 February a member of the search team found the first fragment, a dark stone of about 95 grams, near the village of Saint-Pierre-le-Viger. Within weeks more than 20 pieces had been collected.
The meteorite, named Saint-Pierre-le-Viger, is an ordinary chondrite of the L group, one of the most common kinds of meteorite.
2023 CX1 was only the seventh asteroid ever found before striking Earth, and the first predicted to fall over western Europe. It showed how quickly astronomers can now act on a new discovery, and how the public can help bring the rocks home.