Astronomers spot a small space rock hours before it releases meteorites

The small space rock was spotted just hours before it entered Earth’s atmosphere and landed in Canada’s Lake Ontario on Saturday (November 19).

miniasteroidless than 3 feet (1 meter) wide, was spotted by astronomer David Rankin at Mount Lemon Observatory in Arizona, according to SpaceWeather.com (opens in a new tab). Subsequent observations of other astronomers confirmed that the rock, coming from the direction of The main asteroid belt between orbits a Mars and Jupiterwas on a collision course with Earth.

Just three hours after it was first detected, the object, named C8FF042, tore through the skies over Canada and landed in Lake Ontario. according to NASA (opens in a new tab).

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), it was only the sixth case asteroid found just before impact. In Marcha Hungarian astronomer discovered a slightly larger space rock just two hours before it burned up over the North Atlantic Ocean.

On the subject: Asteroid Apocalypse: How Big Does a Space Rock Have to Be to End Human Civilization?

Witnesses in and around Toronto reported seeing a bright fireball that lit up the sky on Saturday at approximately 3:27 a.m. EST (08:27 GMT). Numerous meteor and web cams captured views of the fireball; One stunning video sequence shows a streak of light passing behind Toronto’s iconic CNN Tower.

According to NASA, radar stations tracked the meteorite from an altitude of about 9 miles (15 kilometers) to 0.53 miles (0.850 km), where it likely broke up into fragments. Space agency officials wrote that most of the fragments probably fell into Lake Ontario, and some small pieces may have landed near the towns of Grimsby and McNab. American Meteor Society (opens in a new tab) received 59 reports of ballide sightings.

Small asteroids often cross the path of our planet. The smallest ones usually burn Earth’s atmosphere, leaving behind only ephemeral streaks of light. Fragments of larger rocks can reach Earth as precious stones meteorites that scientists can study to gain insight into the nature of objects in Solar system.

Large rocks, more than 65 feet wide (20 m), can cause problems on Earth, as the shock waves from their explosions can break windows and topple trees. Larger asteroids can be even more destructive, but fortunately collisions with them are very rare.

The international astronomical community is mapping the near-Earth asteroid population in order to track all potentially dangerous asteroids. Astronomers believe that most “planet killers” — bodies larger than 0.6 miles (1 km) across — are already known and do not pose an immediate threat. However, many smaller stones capable of damaging the entire country have yet to be found.

In September of this year NASA’s DART probe crashed into the small lunar asteroid Dimorphos in order to change its orbit around the parent asteroid Didymos. The experiment was successful, proving that if a future threat is detected in advance, we can repel it.

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