Astronomers Spotted This Asteroid Two Hours Before It Impacted Earth

NASA has a system called Scout which is used to assess asteroids which come close to our planet, otherwise known as near-Earth objects. Scout confirmed the incoming 2022 EB5 asteroid and then alerted the NASA office responsible for what to do if an asteroid hits, known as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

“Scout had only 14 observations over 40 minutes from one observatory to work with when it first identified the object as an impactor,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL who developed Scout (via JPL). “We were able to determine the possible impact locations, which initially extended from western Greenland to off the coast of Norway. As more observatories tracked the asteroid, our calculations of its trajectory and impact location became more precise.”

In the end, the asteroid hit the atmosphere at 5:23 p.m. ET on March 11, just as Scout predicted, and it impacted around 300 miles off the coast of Greenland. The 6.5 foot diameter asteroid burned up in the atmosphere, and none of the matter is thought to have made it to the ground. If an asteroid is larger than this, and potentially dangerous to life, though, it is generally easier to spot and would likely be discovered while it was still further away. NASA details how it spots and tracks larger asteroids on a regular basis on the JPL’s Asteroid Watch website.