An asteroid about a meter in diameter burned up as a glowing fireball in Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines on Wednesday night. According to NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), the light show took place over the island of Luzon.
It is very rare to find asteroids before they enter Earth’s atmosphere, the ESA wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This asteroid is only the ninth ever discovered by humanity before impact.” But it was harmless to Earth, they say.
The U.S. Catalina Sky Survey program, which searches for potentially hazardous asteroids, discovered the astronomical object named 2024 RW1 hours before it entered the atmosphere and released images of X.
Celestial body lit up the night sky
Many residents of Luzon, the Asian country’s most populous island, waited outside for the moment, posting countless videos on social networks showing the fireball flying toward Earth and lighting up the night sky over Cagayan province.
Most such astronomical events have occurred over oceans and uninhabited areas, “and many are obscured by daylight,” the International Meteor Organization (IMO) wrote. Moreover, “the brighter the fireball, the rarer the event.”
There are 1.3 million known asteroids
The space agencies are currently aware of approximately 1.3 million asteroids. The scenarios for the next 100 years are being played out over and over again for the approximately 35,000 currently known fragments of the near-Earth.
Source: Krone
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