Asteroid CAQTDL2 is about to hit Earth — but don’t worry, it’s just a small one

Astronomers have just discovered that an asteroid is about to hit Earth at thousands of miles per hour, just east of the Philippines and most likely in the ocean. Fortunately, the relatively small object is harmless and will burn up in the atmosphere in a fireball.

The asteroid, which is estimated to be about 1 meter in size, was discovered earlier today by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey and has been designated CAQTDL2. It is expected to hit Earth around 16:45 GMT, or 17:45 London time, 12:45 New York time and 00:45 local time at the impact site in the Philippines.

CAQTDL2 is currently estimated to be traveling at 17.6 kilometers per second, or 63,360 kilometers per hour, which Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom says is about average for such objects. “Don’t be fooled by Hollywood movies where you see this thing coming screaming through the sky and you have time to run out of the house, get the cat, jump in the car and drive somewhere. You don’t have time for that,” he says.

The good news is that there is no need for such an evacuation. While the impact will be dramatic – potentially as bright as the moon in the night sky – it poses no danger to those on the ground. “An object that small can’t do any damage on the ground, we’re protected by the Earth’s atmosphere,” Fitzsimmons says. “It will burn up harmlessly and explode in a very impressive fireball.”

Fitzsimmons says that two or three objects of this size hit Earth every year, and we are spotting them earlier and earlier. The first incoming asteroid was spotted by astronomers in 2008. CAQTDL2 will be the ninth accurately predicted asteroid impact on Earth.

“The really positive aspect of this is that the survey telescopes are now good enough to spot these things that are coming and give us a bit of a warning,” he says. “In other words, if this object had been much bigger and therefore perhaps a threat to people on the ground, it would have been much brighter and we would have projected it much further. So this is actually a really nice demonstration that the current survey systems are doing a really good job. We estimate that on average we are now detecting probably one small asteroid every year before it hits the atmosphere, and the survey systems are just getting better.”

Not only is Earth developing and improving its early warning system, but in 2022 NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft proved that we have a chance to save the planet from a catastrophic impact with a larger object. DART crashed into the 160-meter-wide moon Dimorphos and slowed it down slightly, showing that we can theoretically prevent such a disaster. Next month, the European Space Agency will launch its Hera mission to study the impact results up close and further improve our understanding of planetary defense.