2024 September 7
Asteroid 2024 RW1 discovered hours before Earth Impact
At 06:39 UT on 4 September, the Catalina Sky Survey detected an asteroid on a possible collision course with the Earth. Within about the next hour 6 other observatories had imaged it and at 07:46 an email had been posted on the Minor Planet Mailing List announcing the possibility of an object hitting Earth. The impact probability soon reached 100% thanks to many observers reporting astrometry and it was predicted to fall near the island of Luzon, in the Philippines at 16:40 UT. This was the 9th such object to have been discovered in space before impact since 2008. See list.
BAA member Mohammad Odeh at Al-Khatim Observatory (M44) obtained this video sequence as it approached between 15:40 and 15:50 UT, i.e. just 50‒60 minutes before impact and around 20 minutes before it entered the shadow of Earth when it would have been invisible. The object is estimated to have been about a 1-2 metres in size before it burnt up as a bolide travelling at 20.6 km/s.
| The British Astronomical Association supports amateur astronomers around the UK and the rest of the world. Find out more about the BAA or join us. |