Tiny asteroid on path to hit Earth burned up in atmosphere

The asteroid was the ninth detected prior to impacting the atmosphere
It burned up over the ocean near the Philippines
Space agencies monitor the galaxy for potentially hazardous asteroids

Updated: Sep 5, 2024 / 11:13 AM CDT

Asteroid fly by. (Image courtesy of NASA)

(NewsNation) — A small asteroid that was on a path to collide with Earth burned up after entering the atmosphere near the Philippines on Wednesday.

The European Space Agency reported the three-foot asteroid burned up harmlessly after entering our planet’s atmosphere around 12:46 pm ET.

The asteroid, known as 2024 RW1, burned up above the western Pacific Ocean near Luzon Island in the Philippines. It was discovered by a researcher with the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project.

The small asteroid was only the ninth to be spotted before impact. It was found through a NASA-funded observatory near Tuscon, Arizona, that tracks and catalogs near-Earth objects.

Videos posted to social media showed a bright green fireball visible from the Philippines and NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office said multiple sensors detected the impact.

That office is part of a major priority for space agencies, searching for near-Earth asteroids and tracking them. In 2022, NASA crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos in an effort to knock it off its path.

The project, which succeeded, was a test to see if the agency would be able to knock a potentially hazardous asteroid headed toward Earth off track.

It did have unexpected consequences, however. Simulations suggest debris from the crash site could result in a meteor shower years after the impact. But the shooting stars won’t be visible to Earth; instead, they will create a meteor shower on Mars.