A webcam image of the asteroid burning up in the Siberian atmosphere
LenskLR/YouTube
An asteroid with a diameter of about 70 centimeters was spotted by astronomers hours before it burned up harmlessly but spectacularly in the Siberian atmosphere.
European Space Agency (ESA) issued an alert at 9.27am GMT, warning that the space rock would light up the sky at around 23.15 (4.15 GMT) over northern Siberia.
Speaking before the event, Alan Fitzsimmons At Queen’s University in Belfast, UK, he says that an object of this size poses no danger to Earth, but the early warning is a positive sign that our ability to detect these entities before they impact Earth is growing.
“It’s small, but it’s still going to be pretty impressive,” says Fitzsimmons. “It will be dark over the impact site and there will be a very visible, very bright fireball in the sky for hundreds of miles.”
Several objects of this size hit the Earth every year and nowadays we are able to detect more and more of them early. The The first one was caught in 2008. The next one was six years later, but the pace of observations is increasing: C0WEPC5, as today’s asteroid has been named, is the fourth planned attack on Earth this year.
Early warning of small asteroids allows astronomers to observe them and collect data, or try to collect the tiny fragments that survive. Fitzsimmons says the first predicted impact in 2008 recovered small pieces of rock and produced important science. “The beauty of it was that the reflectivity of the meteorites matched what the telescopes measured before they hit, showing a nice direct connection between what we saw in space and what we found later on the ground,” he says.
If we can detect larger and more dangerous objects heading for Earth, it could allow us to divert them, or at least evacuate areas in danger.
A map showing the predicted location of the asteroid impacting the Siberian atmosphere
ESA
NASA and ESA now have it asteroid detection and tracking programsinvolving a large network of dedicated observatories, as well as amateur astronomers who take readings of the positions of known objects in order to better understand and predict their orbits.
This latest asteroid was spotted by NASA’s Earth Impact Alert System (ATLAS), which has four telescopes around the world and is designed to give a week’s warning of impacts.
“It’s a win for science, and for anyone who’s going to be in Siberia (today) evening, it’s definitely something to get them away from the cold temperatures,” says Fitzsimmons.
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