Scientists accurately predicted the impact of a small asteroid over the weekend, demonstrating a capability crucial for potential future encounters with larger, more hazardous space rocks.
Early Sunday morning (Jan. 21) German time, a roughly 3.3-foot-wide (1 meter) asteroid disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere near Berlin, producing a visible fireball witnessed by observers across Europe.
“Attention: A small asteroid will disintegrate harmlessly as a fireball west of Berlin near Nennhausen shortly at 1:32 am CET. Observers will be able to see it if the skies are clear!” NASA communicated through X at 7:08 p.m. EST on Saturday (Jan. 20), 24 minutes before the impact — which indeed occurred as predicted. (CET, or Central European Time, is six hours ahead of EST.)
This asteroid, named 2024 BX1, had been identified less than three hours earlier by Krisztián Sárneczky at the Piszkéstető Mountain Station of the Konkoly Observatory near Budapest, Hungary. According to NASA officials, 2024 BX1 was only the eighth asteroid to be detected before striking our planet.
The asteroid’s trajectory was accurately calculated by the Scout hazard-assessment system, managed by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Scout successfully predicted the impact, pinpointing an exact collision time within one second and a location within 330 feet (100 meters), as stated by NASA officials.
However, Scout didn’t work in isolation. The program utilized data from the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center (MPC), the central hub for observations of asteroids and other small bodies in our solar system. Sárneczky had submitted his 2024 BX1 data to the MPC, along with other observers who began tracking the asteroid after its initial detection.
“Seventy minutes after 2024 BX1 was first sighted, Scout indicated a 100% likelihood of Earth impact and commenced narrowing down the location and time,” NASA officials noted in a statement. “As observation continued and additional data became accessible over the following hour, Scout refined estimates of the time and location.”
The predicted impact site was approximately 37 miles (60 kilometres) west of Berlin. NASA officials suggested there might be fresh meteorites on the ground in that region — tiny remnants of 2024 BX1 that survived its atmospheric journey.
Monitoring potentially hazardous asteroids is a crucial aspect of NASA’s mission. Congress has tasked the agency with identifying and tracking at least 90% of all near-Earth asteroids that are at least 460 feet (140 meters) wide — large enough to pose significant threats upon impact.
Detecting larger asteroids is generally easier than detecting 2024 BX1, so we would likely receive considerably more advance notice of an impending impact. Nonetheless, the procedure would likely follow a similar pattern, with Scout generating and refining impact predictions based on expanding observations.
Subsequently, decisions would need to be made regarding how to address the impending threat from space.
