The small asteroid 2024 BX1 was discovered only about 3 hours before it entered the atmosphere and burned up on January 21.
The asteroid descends in eastern Germany on January 21.
The Hungarian researcher Krisztián Sárneczky discovered a new asteroid from an observatory in Hungary. At around 1:30 AM local time on January 21 (7:30 AM Hanoi time), this asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up in the sky over eastern Germany.
This marks only the eighth time in history that an asteroid has been detected before impacting Earth, and it is the third time Sárneczky has achieved this feat. He previously discovered an asteroid falling in northern Iceland in 2022 and another asteroid passing over the English Channel last year.
The asteroid on January 21 was approximately 1 meter wide, according to Denis Vida, a meteor physicist at Western University in Canada. He is the founder of the Global Meteor Project, aimed at better observing meteors through a global network of cameras directed towards the sky.
(Video: X/Denis Vida).
Vida shared one of the clearest videos of the asteroid on social media platform X, recorded by a livestream camera in Leipzig, Germany. The asteroid may have produced some meteorite fragments that fell to the ground during its descent and disintegration. Vida also noted that the asteroid began to disintegrate about 50 km west of Berlin.
The asteroid was initially designated Sar2736, before being officially named 2024 BX1 by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). In addition to Germany and Hungary, the center recorded data about 2024 BX1 from several observatories in European countries, including Spain, Croatia, and Romania.
NASA also confirmed the visit of 2024 BX1 with a post on social media platform X about 20 minutes before the asteroid entered the atmosphere. “Warning: A small asteroid will disintegrate into a harmless fireball west of Berlin, near Nennhausen, at around 1:32 AM. Observers will see it if the sky is clear,” NASA wrote.
