Fireball during the Leonid meteor shower

Scientists were today celebrating the first successful prediction of an asteroid smashing into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The chunk of space debris burst in a spectacular fireball though it was no more than 15ft across. And it had an impact out of all proportion to its size as it enabled experts to prove they could warn of potentially catastrophic asteroid strikes…

‘It’s the first time we’ve been able to predict an impactor in advance,’ said Donald Yeomans, manager of Nasa’s Near Earth Object programme, which tracks asteroids and comets that come close to our planet.

Tim Spahr, head of Harvard’s Minor Planet Centre, added: ‘If this were something larger and it was going to hit the ground we would be able to get people out of the way.’

The asteroid – labeled 2008 TC3 – was spotted yesterday a little farther away from Earth than the Moon by a U.S. observatory in Arizona.

I spotted the earlier articles, yesterday; but, decided to wait until the event took place and was observed – to Post about the asteroid. I’ll bet there are a number of observers who acquired decent still photos and video footage.

I’ll keep checking and eventually replace the stock image I used up top.