It was called WJ1 and it touched down on November 19, not far from Toronto (Canada).
According to
Numerama
, which relays a press release from the European Space Agency (ESA), the fall of an asteroid could have been predicted to perfection.
The Catalina Sky Survey observatory (University of Arizona, USA) managed to spot the celestial object four hours before it entered the Earth's atmosphere.
In the process, he warned the Minor Planet Center, responsible for detecting asteroids.
A perfect estimate
The scientists worked together to precisely identify the time and location of the point of impact.
As they predicted, the asteroid crashed at 3:30 a.m. in an area between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, near the Canada-US border.
"Exactly at the scheduled time, the asteroid re-entered the atmosphere, and became a brilliant ball of fire in the sky, just above the announced place", welcomed the ESA.
The rock with a diameter of one meter did no damage.
science progresses
Earlier this year, on March 11, a Hungarian astronomer had already predicted the fall of an asteroid in Iceland.
However, this calculation is far from trivial: it is only the sixth time in history that the scientific world has managed to anticipate the place and time of the impact of a celestial object.
"The detection, warning and advanced observations of this asteroid illustrate our growing ability to warn of asteroid impacts, no matter how small," ESA said.
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