Produced by: Manoj Kumar
An asteroid, 2024 UQ, hit Earth’s atmosphere near California just hours after detection, slipping past monitoring systems. Fortunately, its small size meant no risk to people on the ground.
Discovered by Hawaii’s ATLAS survey, 2024 UQ was identified only two hours before impact, revealing the limits of our current asteroid monitoring capabilities.
This recent strike marked the third “imminent impactor” of 2024, with earlier asteroid sightings 2024 BX1 and 2024 RW1 burning up harmlessly over Germany and the Philippines.
The asteroid’s location between two telescope fields delayed recognition, leaving ESA’s monitoring systems without impact data until after it struck Earth, per ESA’s November 2024 report.
Credit : ESA
NOAA’s weather satellites captured flashes from 2024 UQ’s fiery descent, later confirmed by NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey, which helped verify the asteroid’s path and impact.
Planetary defense is now a top priority worldwide, with agencies like NASA, ESA, and others working to catalog and track potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs).
NASA is developing the NEO Surveyor, an infrared telescope, to improve detection of space rocks that are currently hidden from traditional observation methods.
To test planetary defense, NASA’s DART mission successfully altered an asteroid’s trajectory in 2022, showcasing potential for redirecting future threats.
China has joined the global defense effort, planning its own asteroid-deflection mission by 2030, expanding international efforts to prevent potential cosmic impacts.