A small asteroid barreled toward Earth, creating a harmless fireball across the skies above eastern Russia on Tuesday, officials said.
The asteroid, described as “very small” by NASA, impacted Earth’s atmosphere around 11:14 a.m. ET and created a fireball over eastern Russia, the space agency said in a post on X.
The European Space Agency previously said the asteroid was “spotted on a collision course with Earth,” and that it was about 70 centimeters, or about 27.5 inches, in diameter.
The ESA predicted that the impact, while harmless, would create “a nice fireball in the sky” over northern Siberia.
NASA said the asteroid, called C0WEPC5, was first spotted with the Bok telescope at the University of Arizona, and added that astronomers across the world collaborated to help an alert system be able to predict the impact within plus-or-minus 10 seconds.
