Asteroid 2024 RW1 burns up in Earth’s atmosphere over Philippines

An asteroid burns up in atmosphere over  Philippines, producing "spectacular fireball"  The European Space Agency issued a warning  well before the object arrived. As expected,   the asteroid burned up in Earth's atmosphere. And as it fell, it produced a bright green   fireball. But it's also possible that  some of the meteorite made it to Earth.  The asteroid, designated 2024 RW1, was discovered  today by research engineer Jacqueline Fazekas,   a collaborator of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky  Survey, a NASA-funded observatory near Tucson,   Arizona, dedicated to tracking  and cataloging near-Earth objects.  In a post on X, E S A wrote that this was only  the ninth asteroid discovered before the impact.  As predicted, the asteroid struck Earth east  of the northernmost island of the Philippine   archipelago. It was expected to hit at  a speed of 17.6 kilometers per second.  The really good thing about this is  that our observation telescopes are   good enough to detect these things  and give us a little warning.  In other words, if this object was bigger and  could have posed a threat to people on Earth,   it would have been much brighter and we  would have projected it much farther.  This is very good evidence that the  current screening system works very well.  Currently, we probably detect small asteroids on  average about one a year before they reach the   atmosphere, and detection systems are improving. Planetary defense, which involves searching for,   tracking and cataloging near-Earth  asteroids like 2024 RW1, has become a major   priority for space agencies around the world. In 2022, NASA's DART mission slammed an impactor   into a binary asteroid system, altering its orbit. NASA is also planning a new infrared telescope   called NEO Surveyor, and China is developing  its own mission to redirect an asteroid by 2030.