Bright asteroid seen flying over Yakutia
Tengrinews.kz - A bright asteroid, previously predicted by scientists, was captured on camera as it entered the atmosphere over Yakutia, according to RBC.
The celestial body, measuring less than a meter in diameter, entered the Earth's atmosphere above the city of Lensk on December 3 at 9:14 p.m. Astana time. Eyewitness footage shows the glowing fireball streaking across the sky before disappearing behind the trees.
According to the European Space Agency, the asteroid, identified as COWEPC5, was approximately 70 centimeters in diameter. While its exact landing site remains unknown, most asteroids of this size disintegrate in the atmosphere and never reach the Earth's surface.
Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast, emphasized that an object of this size poses no danger to humans.
"It’s a small one, but it will still be quite spectacular. It will be dark over the impact site and for several hundreds of kilometres around there’ll be a very impressive, very bright fireball in the sky," said Fitzsimmons.
Professor Victor Grokhovsky of Ural Federal University highlighted the rarity of predicting and tracking such a small asteroid’s trajectory in advance.
"Earth-based telescopes monitor only a small portion of the sky, so spotting this asteroid was a remarkable stroke of luck. Astronomers calculated its trajectory and time of entry later. This is a success, an achievement," Grokhovsky told Izvestia, a Russian newspaper.
He added that due to its small size, asteroid COWEPC5 was not dangerous, and it is unlikely that traces of it will be found in a crater. The asteroid’s estimated entry speed was 15-16 km/s.
Earlier, Earth's second 'moon' began drifting away after completing its two-month semicircular orbit around the planet.