EarthSpace

Small asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere just after discovery

asteroid hit Earth's atmosphere: Long, green streak of light in the sky. A leafless tree to its right. A band of stars above the tree.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Doug Ingram from Bodalla, Australia, captured this fireball on September 1, 2024. The ATLAS survey discovered a small asteroid shortly before it hit Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on October 22, 2024. This is the 10th time astronomers have found an approaching space rock just before the asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere.

Small asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere

For the 10th time ever and the 3rd time just this year, astronomers discovered an asteroid right before it impacted Earth’s atmosphere. The latest was a small space rock – perhaps 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter – which preliminarily was named A11dc6D and as of October 23 is 2024 UQ. With just a handful of observations, the ATLAS survey briefly tracked the space rock before it harmlessly impacted the atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean.

The little asteroid would have led to a fireball – or exceptionally bright meteor – in the sky about 620 miles (1,000 km) off the California coast. And indeed, NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) reported a fireball at 10:54 UTC on October 22, 2024. The energy released from the impact with our atmosphere would have been a little less than that from the asteroid that hit above the Philippines on September 5, 2024.

How does the CNEOS see these fireballs over remote areas of the globe? With satellites used for mapping lightning. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) captures both lightning and bright meteors that strike our atmosphere.

Peter Brown, a meteor scientist at Western University in Ontario, Canada, reported the impact on X:

A busy time for fireballs

October 21, was the peak of the Orionid meteor shower. Plus, that night there were hundreds of witnesses who captured video and reported seeing a fireball near the U.S.-Canada border around Lake Erie. This event happened at around 7 p.m. EDT (23 UTC) on October 21, 2024.

According to NASA:

Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles. About once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth’s atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball, and burns up before reaching the surface.

So this 3-foot (1 meter) asteroid was pretty unremarkable, except that astronomers spotted it before impact. And with our increasing technology, this will become a more frequent occurrence.

If you capture a photo of a fireball or bright meteor, submit it to us!

Bottom line: A small asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean just after it was discovered on Tuesday, October 22, 2024.

Posted 
October 22, 2024
 in 
Earth

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Kelly Kizer Whitt

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