NASA’s system has effectively predicted the fall of a small asteroid 2024 BX1 over Germany. The incident occurred on January 21 this year. This is stated in the agency’s official report.
The system is called Scout, and it determined in advance where and when the fall would occur. The forecast was issued 95 minutes before the event, which took place near Berlin.
The diameter of the asteroid 2024 BX1 was about 3 feet (1 m). This is the eighth time in history that a small asteroid approaching the Earth has been detected in space.
Asteroids like this one collide with our planet from time to time. They do not pose a threat to life on Earth, but they demonstrate Scout’s ability to quickly calculate the asteroid’s trajectory and warn of collision.
The asteroid 2024 BX1 was first spotted by Krisztian Szarnecki from Budapest. It happened less than three hours before the collision. The information was uploaded to Scout, which made calculations.
The first asteroid to be discovered and tracked long before it collided with our planet was 2008 TC3, with a diameter of 4.1 meters. It exploded at an altitude of about 37 km above the Nubian Desert in Sudan.
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