The newly-discovered small asteroid #CAQTDL2 will flash in the sky over ocean off the northeast coast of #Luzon at about 16:40 UTC - three and a half hours from this writing: https://groups.io/g/mpml/topic/caqtdl2_earth_impact_risk/108260843
Many observers are following it now.
If anyone has a webcam feed from that part of the island looking to the east, I would be interested in watching it (weather and safety of the operator permitting).
The water underneath where #CAQTDL2 will come in is between 3 km and 4 km deep.
This will impede the collection of meteorites.
Anyone who sees the meteor from #Luzon in the #Philippines is encouraged to submit a fireball report to the International Meteor Organization: https://www.imo.net/9th-earth-impactor-on-its-way-to-northern-philippines/
Again: Impact time is about 2024 September 4, 16:40 UTC.
That is September 5, 00:40 in local time.
Freshly discovered in the first hours of September 4th by the Mt. Lemmon Survey (G96), part of Catalina Sky Survey, CAQDTL2 is a small asteroid (around 1 m dimensions) coming from the main asteroid belt. But what's exceptional with it, is that its orbit will soon bring it into the Earth atmopshere! For the 9th…
Discovery credit for #CAQTDL2 is to Jacqueline Fazekas at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.
As of this writing; 43 observations of the asteroid have been reported and indexed. More will keep coming in until it enters Earth's shadow at about 16:00 UTC: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/scout/#/object/CAQTDL2 .
(Note for anyone reading this later: That is a temporary link. The object now known as CAQTDL2 will be given a catalog designation and the observations indexed under that.)
I find a camera feed looking to the south from Taitung County in #Taiwan that appears to have recorded the #2024RW1 impact flash: https://www.youtube.com/live/JhQuR77AR7U .
Other verifiable reports are also coming in.
Anyone who saw the impact is encouraged to submit a report at https://www.imo.net/9th-earth-impactor-on-its-way-to-northern-philippines/ .
The #2024RW1 fireball is now on the CNEOS list: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ .
Impact energy 0.2 kiloton.
The last similar event was 2 weeks ago, but that one was not seen in advance.
A further thought regarding #2024RW1 and its having flashed in the sky today:
This continues the pattern of those small asteroids discovered prior to impact being mainly impactors hitting the atmosphere over the northern hemisphere.
That pattern is due to most current asteroid discovery telescopes being in the northern hemisphere.
As @VRubinObs begins operations, more small asteroids will be discovered prior to hitting the atmosphere over the southern hemisphere.
Michael Busch
