NASA’s Asteroid Watch revealed an asteroid would be impacting Earth’s atmosphere and creating ‘a harmless fireball’.
And remarkable videos of the event taken from the Russian republic of Sakha, in northeastern Siberia have since been widespread over social media showing the fireball soaring through the sky earlier this morning (December 4).
The post reads: “At 11:14am EST, a very small (<1m) #asteroid will impact Earth’s atmosphere and create a harmless fireball over eastern Russia’s Olyokminsky District.
“The asteroid was first observed with the University of Arizona’s Bok telescope by the @NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey and Spacewatch. The impact prediction was made by the Scout system at @NASAJPL’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).”
And sure enough, footage has since emerged online showing the moment the asteroid impacted Earth’s atmosphere.
It produced a ‘harmless fireball’ (Telegram)
Multiple videos shared to Telegram and later Twitter show a light blazing brightly through the sky, before fading out in a glimmer.
Indeed, the European Space Agency (ESA) noted the ‘small asteroid’ measured ‘around -70cm in diameter’ and produced ‘a nice fireball in the sky over northern Siberia’.
The Sakha emergencies ministry said it was placed on alert for the asteroid, but thankfully the ESA reassured the ‘impact’ on Earth’s atmosphere was harmless and added: “Thanks to observations from astronomers around the world, our alert system was able to predict this impact to within +/- 10 seconds.”
And it’s not taken long for people to flood to the post to weigh in.
Another added: “70 centimeters?!? That’s not an asteroid. That’s an asterette.”
A third wrote: “Woow.”
While a fourth commented: “Cool.”
However, it’s set to pass at a distance of 1.37 million miles so won’t be impacting the Earth’s atmosphere which is just as well given it’s a lot bigger, measuring 1,200 feet in diameter.
