Asteroid Alert: Fireball Seen Over Russia A Few Hours After It Was Detected (VIDEOS)

A small asteroid, approximately 70 centimeters in diameter, has been detected on a collision course with Earth, set to enter the atmosphere over northern Siberia in just a few hours, marking the 12th time an imminent impactor has been discovered before atmospheric entry. 

According to an alert from the European Space Agency, newly-discovered asteroid C0WEPC5 was expected to make its atmospheric entry around 16:15 UTC (17:15 CET) with a potential variation of five minutes. Despite its small size, this event promises to be a spectacular sight, likely resulting in a brilliant fireball visible from the ground.

Small Asteroid, Grand Show

The asteroid, designated C0WECP5, was spotted by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a network of four telescopes operating globally, designed to provide up to a week’s warning of potential impacts. 

First Videos of the C0WECP5 Asteroid

The small asteroid has just crashed in Yakutia (Sakha Republic), Russia.

The phenomenon was observed low on the western horizon.

The size of the asteroid was about a meter. It probably dropped some rocks in a remote forested area.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from Queen’s University Belfast, who has been involved in asteroid research for decades, including the upcoming ESA Hera mission, notes: “It’s a small one, but it will still be quite spectacular. It will be dark over the impact site and for several hundreds of kilometres around, there’ll be a very impressive, very bright fireball in the sky.”

Planetary Defense

While small asteroids like C0WECP5 pose no hazard, they serve as valuable tests for planetary defense capabilities. For instance, NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system has successfully predicted several small asteroid impacts, including one over Ontario, Canada, in 2022, and another over Germany in January 2024.

Both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have dedicated programs for this purpose, involving extensive networks of observatories and collaborative international efforts.