'Harmless' asteroid impacts Earth, creates fireball off Luzon

An asteroid harmlessly impacted Earth's atmosphere on early Sept. 5, creating a fireball off Luzon.

The asteroid, named 2024 RW1, was "very small," measuring about a meter according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA)'s Near-Earth Object teams. It struck at around 12:40 a.m. Manila time (16:40 UTC).

Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded observatory near Tucson in Arizona tracking NEOs, first observed 2024 RW1 in space.

NASA said United States Government sensors detected the asteroid which is now included in its fireball data, whose first entry was April 15, 1988.

The ESA on X said it's the ninth asteroid that humankind has ever spotted before impact.

At 8:25 p.m. on Sept. 4, the ESA anticipated that Tropical Storm Enteng (international name Yagi) would "make fireball observations difficult." But when 2024 RW1 finally struck, it wasn't cloudy or stormy then, allowing observers to capture the phenomenon on their phones.

The International Meteor Organization on its website compiled social media videos from different parts of Luzon, including in Tuguegarao, Santa Ana, Gonzaga, and Muntinlupa.

Facebook user Marvin Coloma's seven-second clip—reposted by the American Meteor Society and the IMO—showed the greenish asteroid descending before it exploded, turning the pitch-black sky into orange for a second. The video has garnered over 8,700 reactions, 965,000 views, and 6,700 shares as of writing.

One-meter asteroids are estimated to hit Earth every two weeks.

The last catastrophic asteroid that collided with Earth was about 66 million years ago.

According to National Geographic, the asteroid, roughly 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) across—the size of a city—slammed into the waters off of what is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula at 45,000 miles an hour. Some 76% of all species on the planet, including all nonavian dinosaurs, went extinct.