It burned up over the Indian Ocean. what makes this event special is the timing While small meteors hit Earth’s atmosphere regularly. A tiny space object, designation 2026 RW1, entered Earth’s atmosphere off the coast of northwestern Australia on September 6, 2026.
It was only the 13th time that scientists discovered an asteroid before impact, according to EarthSky.
The incident was also confirmed by Richard Moissl, head of Planetary Defense for the European Space Agency (ESA). “The object was first reported to the Minor Planet Center by the Catalina Sky Survey, with earlier detections by Pan-STARRS, and the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies @NASAJPL calculated its trajectory and impact location – all funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. “INCOMING! The impact will likely cause a bright meteor,” he wrote. EDT. scenarios like this provide an invaluable test of our planetary defense capabilities to monitor for larger objects and predict impact threats,” NASA noted While not a hazard. “This is only the 13th small object that has been detected in space prior to impact, most from @NASA’s routine planetary defense monitoring. Even though the asteroid itself was harmless, events like this give scientists a rare real-world test for global early-warning networks.
Our systems have calculated an atmospheric entry in the timeframe between 16:00-16:30 UTC of a harmless object discovered by Mt Lemmon survey with a diameter of around 0.8 m northwest of Australia over the ocean. “A small natural object 1.5-5 feet (0.5-1.5m) is predicted to impact Earth’s atmosphere just northwest of Australia and safely disintegrate today, Sept. 6, 12:14 p.m.
