Watch videos of a small asteroid as it hurtled towards Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.
Early on Sunday morning, a tiny asteroid hurtled towards Earth, entered its atmosphere and exploded in a ball of fire above Nennhausen in Germany, west of Berlin. The asteroid was harmless, and researchers detected it three hours before impact.
Such asteroid entries usually happen a few times a year, but this one was special because it was detected before it hit, according to Live Science. This is only the eighth time that scientists have spotted one of these asteroids before it hit the planet’s atmosphere. “Heads Up: A tiny asteroid will disintegrate as a harmless fireball west of Berlin near Nennhausen shortly at 1:32 AM CET. Overseers will see it if it’s clear!,” shared NASA’s Asteroid Watch team on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday.
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When the asteroid arrived, it was far from inconspicuous and social media was flooded with videos of the asteroid’s descent over Europe. Denis Vida, a PhD associate in meteor physics at Western University in Canada, shared this video of the asteroid that was captured by a camera livestreaming from the Augustusplatz square in the city of Germany.
Science journalist Robin George Andrews also shared a video of the asteroid without specifying the source. You can watch that below.
The asteroid was initially called Sar2736 before the International Astronomical Union’s minor planet center officially named it 2024 BX1.
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First uploaded on: 24-01-2024 at 15:08 IST
