Asteroid nearly hits Earth, dramatically illuminating night sky over Siberia
An asteroid streaked past northern Siberia in the middle of the night Tuesday before burning up in Earth’s atmosphere, lighting up the skies with a blinding flash, dramatic video shows.
The relatively diminutive asteroid measured just 27 inches wide — about the diameter of a bicycle tire — and posed no danger to Earth, but was still enough to produce a “nice fireball in the sky” over the Siberian tundra around 4:15 a.m. local time, the European Space Agency wrote on X.
The asteroid, temporarily given the rolls-off-the-tongue name C0WEPC5, was a rare instance of what’s known as an “imminent impactor,” discovered at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. just hours before its dramatic appearance, Space.com reported.
C0WEPC5 is just the 11th imminent impactor ever discovered and the record-setting fourth this year alone.
Space agencies around the world continuously monitor the skies for asteroids and other celestial objects on a potential collision course with Earth.
On June 30, 1908, a much larger asteroid with a diameter of over 130 feet exploded over Siberia in what has since been named the Tunguska Event.
The impact site was not examined by scientists until 20 years later, when they discovered the asteroid carved a massive area of destruction of around 830 square miles, according to NASA.
In 2016, the United Nations enshrined the celestial happening with its own date, designating June 30 as International Asteroid Day to boost awareness of asteroids and space agencies’ efforts to discover them.
