What better way to start the week than being reminded of our planet’s frightening vulnerability to asteroids and other space objects?

Earth has once again been hit by a gigantic meteor which exploded in the sky over Siberia – the third event in four months.

The ‘fireball’ was seen by multiple witnesses as it scorched over the Krasnoyarsk region.

Luckily, no-one was hurt when the rock hit our planet, but the collision once again shows just how difficult it is to predict the movements of small objects on a collision course with Earth.

A view of the meteor seen over Siberia

‘I panicked as it sounded and looked like a plane on fire, I got really scared of the noise and shine it created’, a local woman told the Siberian Times. 

‘I pulled a phone out of a pocket, but it flew across the sky so fast that I only caught a long white trace it left.’


Last year Nasa highlighted a ‘vulnerability’ in Earth’s asteroid observation network which could allow a space rock to plough into our planet with little warning.

Lindley Johnson, the space agency’s Planetary Defence Officer, said there was only a ‘limited’ chance of spotting asteroids coming from a certain direction in space.

It’s very easy to track large objects, but tinier ones can often appear on the horizon a short time before impact.

The warning came after a very small space rock called 2018 LA was spotted a few hours before it exploded over Botswana.

'Lost' death asteroid which vanished for eight years is about to skim past Earth tomorrow
Planetary Defence Officer says astronomers only have ‘limited’ chance of spotting space rocks coming from a certain direction in space (Photo: Getty)

Luckily, the object was so small that it caused little damage and merely exploded in the sky.

But if it had been larger, it could have caused untold damage, potentially wiping out cities and causing devastation on a ‘continental’ scale’.

If asteroids approached from the ‘day side’ of Earth, it would be invisible because the sun’s light would stop us from seeing it.





The asteroid which killed the dinosaurs was believed to be more than seven miles wide, but space rocks don’t need to be this huge to cause some serious damage.

When a 20-metre-wide asteroid exploded in the skies over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, the resulting ‘airburst’ caused by the detonating meteorite left about 400 people injured, with most wounds caused by shards of flying glass from windows smashed by the shockwave.

In 1908, 80 million trees were knocked down over an area of 800 square miles hidden deep in the Siberian forest when a meteor which was up to 190 metres wide crashed into Earth. If the object which caused this devastation had hit a populated area, it could have killed millions and razed a city to the ground.

The mysterious ‘Tunguska event’ was the largest asteroid impact in recorded history and caused an explosion 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.

There are not believed to be any asteroids currently on a collision course with Earth.