Astronomers Detect Meteoroid Hours Before It Slams Into Earth
Astronomers spotted a meteoroid heading for Earth hours before it slammed into our planet’s atmosphere on Sunday night.
Over the weekend, the European Space Agency alerted(Opens in a new window) the public about the meteoroid, which is a space rock smaller than an asteroid. Fortunately, the object was only about 1 meter (3.3 feet) in size, resulting in the meteoroid burning up in the atmosphere.
The discovery came from an asteroid hunter named Krisztián Sárneczky, who told(Opens in a new window) Space.com he spotted SAR 2667 while using a 2-foot telescope during a routine survey for near-Earth objects. Astronomers then confirmed(Opens in a new window) the meteoroid was poised to hit Earth in France in the early morning local time.
Residents in the country snapped video of SAR 2667 entering the atmosphere, which briefly created a bright fireball in the sky.
In a tweet(Opens in a new window), the ESA added: “This is just the seventh time an asteroid impact has ever been predicted before it happens—a sign of the rapid advancements in global asteroid detection capabilities!”
The sixth time occurred(Opens in a new window) in November, when a NASA-funded project devoted to discovering near-Earth asteroids spotted a separate meteoroid less than 1 meter in size. The object later burned up in the atmosphere near The Great Lakes along the US and Canadian border, just as astronomers had predicted.
Detecting asteroids before they hit is crucial to protecting our planet from space rocks capable of destroying civilization. The ESA notes that meteoroids at about 1 meter in size generally hit the planet every two weeks while larger, more destructive asteroids generally strike once every 10,000 or 1 million years.
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