DObviously, the role of mayor exposes one to situations that are surprising to say the least. In Saulgé-l’Hôpital, in Maine-et-Loire, Patrice Bazin will not soon forget the phone call he received on Sunday June 9 afternoon, in the middle of the European vote. While his wife is manning the polling station, a man presents himself and asks him to contact the councilor immediately. “She told me that an astronomer had come especially from Paris to see me because a meteorite had fallen in the town,” says the councilor. At first I thought it was a hoax. »
Absolutely not. The visitor in question is François Colas, astronomer at the Paris Observatory. A few days earlier, thanks to its vast Fripon network (Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network), made up of cameras facing the sky and scattered throughout France, the Vigie-ciel program, managed by the institution, spotted a long incandescent trail in the Loire sky.
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After calculating the trajectory, the experts deduced that an object had fallen in the small town of Saulgé-l’Hôpital on June 6 at precisely 1:58 a.m. “I have experienced things as an elected official, but I did not think that my mandate would one day offer me additional knowledge in astronomy,” smiles the holder of the tricolor scarf […] Read more
