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The discovery of an incoming asteroid by veteran asteroid hunter Sárneczky led to a coordinated global response, culminating in the successful observation of the impact of asteroid 2024 BX1 near Berlin. This event highlights progress in space monitoring technology and the value of international collaboration. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
- On January 20, 2024, astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky detected an asteroid on an imminent collision course with Earth.
- Just a few hours later, it impacted our planet’s atmosphere 50 kilometers west of Berlin, producing an impressive fireball.
- Dubbed ‘2024 BX1’, this is only the eighth asteroid that humanity has detected before the impact and the third discovered by Sárneczky.
Discovery of asteroid 2024 BX1
It was at 22:48 CET on Saturday, January 20, when veteran asteroid hunter Sárneczky discovered a new asteroid using the 60 cm Schmidt Telescope at the Piszkéstető mountain station, part of the Konkoly Observatory in Hungary.
He immediately sent his data on the asteroid’s trajectory to the Minor Planet Centerbut with only three initial observations, it was impossible to know for sure whether it was on a collision course with Earth.
However, Sárneczky continued tracking the asteroid and, just minutes later, shared four more observations that clearly indicated a 100% chance of an imminent impact.
The final detection of asteroid 2024 BX1 (initially known as Sar2736 before the impact) obtained by Luca Buzzi from the Schiaparelli Observatory in Italy. The exposure began at 00:24:55 UTC on January 20, 2024. The asteroid travels from the center of the image toward the top and begins to disappear from view as it enters Earth’s shadow. Credit: L. Buzzi, GV Schiaparelli Observatory
Global response and impact
Automatic impact monitoring systems around the world, including ESA’s ‘Meerkat’, responded to this new data and sprang into action, issuing an alert to astronomers and asteroid experts.
Sárneczky continued to make and report his observations and was soon joined by others in Europe. More than a dozen observatories turned their eyes toward the incoming object. With his help, it soon became clear that the small asteroid, about one meter in size, would impact Earth in less than two hours, approximately 50 km west of Berlin, Germany.
Predicted location and time of impact calculated by ESA’s “Meerkat” imminent impactor warning system after the first 14 observations of object Sar2736 (later designated asteroid 2024 BX1). Meerkat updates its evaluations every time it receives new observations. Credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Asteroids of this size hit Earth every two weeks on average. They pose no significant danger and most are never detected. But they can help us understand how many small asteroids there are, and we can study the fireballs they produce to determine what they are made of, if we catch them on camera.
Fortunately, large asteroids that are many kilometers in diameter are much easier to detect and relatively rare. The vast majority of near-Earth asteroids that would cause devastating damage if they hit our planet have already been detected, and we don’t know of any colliding with our planet for at least the next hundred years.
ESA’s Gaia spacecraft maps more than 150,000 asteroid orbits. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, Acknowledgments: Stefan Jordan, Toni Sagristà, Paolo Tanga; Gaia Sky (developed by Toni Sagristà); Gaia DR3 data (https://www.archives.esac.esa.int/gaia)
The event and its meaning
As Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, astronomers continued tracking asteroid 2024 BX1 until, at 01:25 CET, it entered Earth’s shadow and disappeared from view.
The observers held their breath, but did not have to wait long. Just a few minutes later, at 01:32 CET, 2024 BX1 hit Earth’s atmosphere and burned an explosive trail into the night sky. Many people in the Berlin area and throughout central Europe were able to witness the fireball, and a handful of people and automated camera systems even managed to record it.
Late in the afternoon of January 20, 2024, astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky detected an asteroid on an imminent collision course with Earth. Just a few hours later, it collided with our planet’s atmosphere 50 km west of Berlin, producing this impressive fireball at 01:32 CET on Sunday, January 21. Later called 2024 BX1, this is only the eighth asteroid that humanity has detected before impact. Thanks to the rapid response and information sharing of Earth’s asteroid and fireball communities, including ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre, many people were able to see and record this spectacular sight, despite that it took place with only a few hours notice and in the middle of the night. This video was captured by the AllSky7 network. Credit: ALLSKY7 / Sirko Molau – AMS16 Ketzuer
Only eight asteroids have been detected before impacting the Earth’s atmosphere. The first of these discoveries took place in 2008, and four were detected in the last two years alone. As humanity’s ability to detect smaller space objects continues to improve, this number is likely to increase exponentially in the coming years.
During the three hours between detection and impact, around 180 observations were sent to the Minor Planet Centre, including those from ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center taken from Tenerife, Spain.
Visualization of the trajectory and impact of asteroid 2024 BX1 on January 21, 2024, created using the Flyby visualization tool from ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. Credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Thanks to the quick response and information sharing of Earth’s asteroid and fireball communities, many people were able to see and record this spectacular sight, even though it took place with only a few hours’ notice and in the middle of the evening.
Now the search has begun for possible meteorites that survived the fiery journey through the atmosphere and reached Earth.
For more on this story, see Small asteroid detected on imminent collision course with Earth.