Last month, an asteroid impacted Earth's atmosphere just hours after being detected — somehow, it managed to circumvent impact monitoring

An asteroid hit Earth just hours after being detected. It was the 3rd 'imminent impactor' of 2024

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2024-11-15 15:30:02

Last month, an asteroid impacted Earth's atmosphere just hours after being detected — somehow, it managed to circumvent impact monitoring systems during its approach to our planet. However, on the bright side, the object measured just 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter and posed very little threat to anything on Earth's surface.

This asteroid, designated 2024 UQ, was first discovered on Oct. 22 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey in Hawaii, a network of four telescopes that scan the sky for moving objects that might be space rocks on a collision course with Earth. Two hours later, the asteroid burned up over the Pacific Ocean near California, making it an "imminent impactor."

The small amount of time between detection and impact means impact monitoring systems, operated by the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Center, didn't receive tracking data about the incoming asteroid until after it struck Earth, according to the center's November 2024 newsletter.

"ATLAS survey obtained images that included detections of a small object in a high-probability collision course. However, due to the location of the object near the edge of two adjacent fields, the candidate was recognized as a moving object only a few hours later," ESA wrote in the newsletter.