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A bright fireball was spotted shortly after midnight in the northern Philippines on Thursday as a “very small asteroid” burned up in the atmosphere.
Measuring roughly 1m (3.2ft), it was “harmless” but created a “spectacular fireball”, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
Asteroids of this size hit the Earth around every 2 weeks, external, the ESA said, but it added that this was only the ninth time one was discovered before impacting the planet’s atmosphere.
It was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on Wednesday, which is run by the University of Arizona and funded by Nasa.
Nasa said the “very small”, harmless asteroid was predicted to create a fireball off the east coast of northern Philippines.
Scientists named it 2024 RW1.
