Yesterday, a fairly small asteroid burned up harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean, the European Space Agency (ESA) informs.

The nearly 1-meter asteroid burned up on September 4 at around 12:46 a.m. ET near the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

The asteroid, named 2024 RW1, was discovered yesterday by research technologist Jacqueline Fazekas of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey Observatory. It is funded by NASA and is located near Tucson, Arizona, USA, and aims to track and record near-Earth objects.

According to ESA, 2024 RW1 was the ninth asteroid observed before entering Earth's atmosphere.

NASA's Asteroid Watch website predicted that an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere could cause a bright light in the sky. Many videos posted on social networks show a bright green fireball appearing in the sky.

Planetary defense, which involves searching for near-Earth asteroids, recording them, and tracking their movements, has become one of the top priorities of the world's space agencies. In 2022, NASA's DART mission hit one of the asteroids in the binary system with a specially designed device in an attempt to alter its trajectory.

To protect Earth from potential asteroid impacts, NASA is also planning a new infrared telescope known as the NEO Surveyor, and China is developing its own asteroid deflection mission, which should be ready by 2030.