A small asteroid passed through the Earth’s atmosphere on Tuesday evening, crashing without causing damage in the Siberian republic of Yakutia, Russia. An impressive, but worrying scene, because according to the European Space Agency (ESA), the object was only spotted 12 hours before its arrival on Earth.
Named COWEPC5, this asteroid measured between 50 centimeters and 2 meters in diameter. Although considered “potentially dangerous” by the Russian space agency, its impact fortunately did not cause any damage. “The impact will be harmless and will probably produce a beautiful fireball in the sky over northern Siberia”had warned NASA a few hours earlier on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Residents of Olekminsk, a small town 650 kilometers southwest of Yakutsk, the regional capital, witnessed this phenomenon. They captured spectacular images of a bright object streaking across the sky, similar to a comet, before sharing the videos on social media.
This event has the importance of space surveillance. With such a late detection, it raises questions about our ability to anticipate the arrival of these celestial objects and to limit the potential risks in the event of a more threatening trajectory.
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