It emerged that, due to a reallocation of places for students from Great Britain, a further 308 places would go to Queens University, Belfast.

BBC: Employment and learning committee

The asteroid's arrival was preceded by a damaging meteor event in Russia on Friday - but indications from the meteor's path suggest that the two events are entirely unrelated - just a "cosmic coincidence", as Alan Fitzsimmons of Queens University Belfast told BBC News.

BBC: Asteroid 2012 DA14 in record-breaking Earth pass

Its research was led by a team from University College Cork (UCC) but involved academics from five institutions, including Queens University in Belfast (QUB).

BBC: Overweight man measuring his waist