ASTRONOMERS DISCOVERED THE ASTEROID TWO HOURS BEFORE IT COLLIDED WITH THE EARTH. WHAT OCCURRED AFTER THAT?

When Leonardo De Caprio's film Don't Look Up was released on Netflix, the entire globe watched as it warned us about the impending threats of asteroids and our tardy response to combat them. Last week, astronauts discovered an asteroid that had a slim possibility of colliding with Earth and crashing to the surface.

Yes, an asteroid collided with Earth, and we knew about it only two hours before it hit. The one saving grace was that this extraterrestrial object was just 2 metres long, limiting the amount of damage it could cause.

If it had been larger, with a breadth of at least a kilometre, the implications could have been deadly.

Asteroid 2022 EB5 was too small to pose a threat to Earth, and it's only the fifth time humans have been able to detect an asteroid before it collided with the planet, which already has over 200 craters from earlier asteroid impacts spanning millions of years. Astronomers predicted the March 11 strike because they knew it was on a collision trajectory and could forecast exactly where and when it will happen.

WHERE DID THE ASTEROID COME FROM?

Using the 60cm Schmidt telescope at the Piszkéstet observatory in Hungary, astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky spotted a bright and fast-moving new object in the sky. He reported his findings to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) within 14 minutes after making four observations of the mysterious planet. The impact assessment at the time indicated that there was a less than 1% possibility of having an effect.

Krisztián made ten additional observations, and the situation radically changed. The asteroid was on its way to strike the planet. ESA's "Meerkat" surveillance system sent an alarm to the Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre almost exactly an hour after it was discovered (NEOCC). Meanwhile, NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) received a warning.

2022 EB5 will reach the atmosphere southwest of Jan Mayen, a Norwegian island 470 kilometres off the east coast of Greenland and northeast of Iceland, according to Nasa's Scout impact hazard assessment system. Infrasound detectors confirmed the hit.

WHAT IF THE ASTEROID WAS LARGE?

Every day, between 40 and 100 tonnes of space material are predicted to hit Earth, the majority of which is in the form of very minute particles. Nasa promised that a larger asteroid with a high risk of colliding with Earth would be discovered considerably further away. Because the 2022 EB5 was too small, these items only become luminous enough to be identified in the final hours before impact. They're a fraction of the size of the objects that NASA has charged the Planetary Defense Coordination Office with finding and alerting about.

"Tiny asteroids like 2022 EB5 are abundant, and they collide with the atmosphere around every 10 months or so. But, according to Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS, "very few of these asteroids have been detected in space and observed extensively prior to impact, primarily because they are very faint until the last few hours, and a survey telescope must observe just the right spot of the sky at the right time for one to be detected."

Large asteroids with a diameter of kilometres are simpler to locate, according to the European Space Agency. Despite the fact that they have the potential to cause massive devastation, they are very uncommon. Since 2008, all five asteroids have been discovered before they collide.

With space agencies planning missions to divert huge asteroids on their way to Earth, observing this new asteroid before it collides may help scientists better comprehend and track Near-Earth Objects.