When you purchase through links on our site , we may bring in an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
A smallasteroidlit up the skies over northern Siberia today ( Dec. 4 ) after cut up in Earth ’s ambience in a " spectacular " ( yet harmless ) fireball .
uranologist spotted the space rock , measure 28 inches ( 70 centimetre ) in diameter , in the early minute on Wednesday local time , just hour before the space rock enter the atmosphere .
The screenshot shows the asteroid C0WEPC5 burning up in the skies above Siberia.
" Thanks to observations from astronomers around the existence , our alert organization was able to foretell this encroachment to within + /- 10 bit , " theEuropean Space Agency(ESA ) write in apost on X , formerly Twitter .
C0WEPC5 , as the asteroid has been temporarily named , enroll Earth ’s atmosphere at 1:15 a.m. local time on Dec. 4 over Russia ’s remote Sakha Republic , also known as Yakutia , in northeastern Siberia . Local officials were placed on alarm , the Sakha exigency ministry noted , but no damage was reported during the outcome .
concern : NASA ’s most want : The 5 most dangerous asteroids to Earth
Footage of the bolide was partake in by the Sakha Republic Ministry Of Internal Affairs on Telegram . The footage was from colleagues at the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Olekminsky District and city residents .
NASA ’s Asteroid sublunar - shock Last Alert System(ATLAS ) spotted the space rock 12 hours before it entered our atmosphere , ESA say , make it the fourth so - call " imminent impactor " detected so far this year , and the 11th one detect overall , according to Live Science ’s sister siteSpace.com .
— We are fast approaching the sun ’s ' conflict geographical zone ' — and it could be even worse than solar maximum , experts admonish
— super uncommon , black ' anti - auroras ' paint luminous ' letter E ' above Alaska
— ' Cataclysmic ' solar storm collide with Earth around 2687 years ago , ancient tree ring discover
Thefirst asteroidto be detected and tracked in this way was a 13 - foot - full ( 4 - meter - wide ) space rock call 2008 TC3 , which broke up above Sudan in October 2008 . But the system did n’t observe another one until January 2014 , when Arizona ’s Mount Lemmon observatory find meteoroid2014 AAseveral hours before it streak through our skies . However , since then , our power to find these impactors has greatly improved and space agencies are now detecting several imminent impactors every year .
While asteroid like C0WEPC5 amaze no threat to the planet , birth these detection systems in place gives astronomers the opportunity to identify anddeflect large and more unsafe objectson a collision path with Earth .
As a result , bothNASAand ESA have dedicated programs for spotting and dog these approximate - terra firma objects . Fortunately , no recognise asteroid poses a scourge to Earth for at least the next 100 years .
NASA ’s Lucy spacecraft snaps first skinny - ups of weird peanut - shaped asteroid
' City - grampus ' asteroid that might hit moon has ' unexpected ' bod , uranologist say
The invariant surveillance of New life could worsen our Einstein function in ways we do n’t full see , disturbing studies suggest
