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On 4 September at 16:39 UTC (18:39 CEST), the small asteroid 2024 RW1 entered Earth’s atmosphere near the Philippines, exploding in a fireball witnessed by people in the region.<\/p>\n
Shortly after its discovery 10 hours earlier, astronomers around the world, including those from ESA\u2019s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre, began to track the asteroid and submit new observations to the Minor Planet Center\u00a0to help narrow down the time and location of impact.<\/p>\n
These are the final observations of the asteroid acquired by ESA\u2019s astronomers shortly before\u00a0it entered Earth’s shadow, around 37 minutes before impact, using a telescope at Siding Spring Observatory\u00a0in Australia, part of\u00a0the\u00a0Las Cumbres Observatory\u00a0network.<\/p>\n
These three images were acquired at 15:52 and 15:53 UTC on 4 September 2024, roughly 45 minutes before impact, while the asteroid was at a distance of approximately 52 000 km from the telescope.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n