Safe for Earth

Asteroid burns up as a fireball over the Philippines

(Bild: AP/Allan G. Madelar, Krone KREATIV)

An asteroid with a diameter of around one meter burned up as a glowing fireball in the Earth's atmosphere over the Philippines on Wednesday evening. According to NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), the light spectacle occurred over the island of Luzon.

It is very rare to find asteroids before they enter the Earth's atmosphere, the ESA wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "This asteroid is only the ninth that mankind has ever discovered before its impact." However, it was harmless for the Earth, they say.

The US Catalina Sky Survey program, which looks out for potentially dangerous asteroids, discovered the astronomical object, named 2024 RW1, hours before it entered the atmosphere and posted images on X.

Celestial body lit up the night sky
Many residents on Luzon, the most populous island in the Asian country, waited for the moment outside and posted numerous videos on social networks. They show how the fireball flies towards Earth and lights up the night sky over the province of Cagayan.

The asteroid 2024 RW1 (marked in red in the image) had only been discovered a few hours earlier.

(Bild: AP/Allan G. Madelar, Krone KREATIV)

Most of such astronomical events took place over the oceans and uninhabited regions, "and many of them are obscured by daylight", wrote the International Meteor Organization (IMO). In addition, "the brighter the fireball, the rarer the event."

1.3 million asteroids are known
The space agencies are currently aware of around 1.3 million asteroids. The scenarios for the next 100 years are repeatedly played out for the 35,000 or so known near-Earth chunks.