The month of December this year marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. The mission, now operating continuously near the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point, has already revolutionized many fields of astronomy, thanks to the broad and exquisite quality of the data it is producing.

For the first time since 2012 the year that just ended did not break all records of annual NEO discoveries. This was mostly due to unusually poor weather in Hawaii, where many current NEO discovery surveys are located.

This year on 8 February marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of the Allende meteorite, the largest carbonaceous chondrite ever found. The atmospheric entry and impact happened at night local time, and were therefore well observed over the entire Northern Mexico. About 2 tonnes of fragments were later collected on ground in a strewn field of about 50 km size.

On 1 February 2019 a bright daytime fireball was seen by multiple eyewitnesses around the area of Gulf of Mexico. It exploded over the western tip of Cuba, producing a significant shockwave felt by local residents, and the fall of a large number of stony meteorites, mostly near the village of Viflales.