Unexpected Asteroid Smacks into Earth With Little Warning – Should We Be Concerned?
Unexpected Asteroid Smacks into Earth With Little Warning – Should We Be Concerned?
03-18-2022 Talia Wise
An asteroid took astronomers by surprise recently, hitting Earth’s atmosphere just two hours after it was first detected by scientists. Thankfully, the stone wasn’t big enough to cause a major catastrophe on Earth.
The refrigerator-sized cosmic rock, named 2022 EB5, is only the fifth asteroid spotted right before hitting the planet and is the first sighting of its kind since 2019.
Last week, astronomer Krisztian Sarneczky noticed the asteroid while viewing space from the Piszkéstető Mountain Station in Northern Hungary. Sarneczky reported the sighting to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.
According to NASA, the “Scout” system, which constantly searches a database for potential asteroid impacts, was immediately tasked with following this last-minute event, predicting it would likely hit a remote Norwegian island, 300 miles northeast of Iceland.
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