On Sunday morning, January 21, a small asteroid streaked across the sky and crashed into Earth’s atmosphere near Berlin, creating a bright but harmless fireball visible for miles. Such sightings usually happen several times a year, but this case was unique because it was first detected by scientists about three hours before impact; This is only the eighth time researchers have spotted one of these space rocks before impact.

Named asteroid 2024 BXIfirst discovered by self-proclaimed asteroid hunter Christian SarnetskyiAn astronomer at the Piszkéstete mountain station, part of the Konkoli Observatory in Hungary. He identified the space rock with the help of The 60 cm Schmidt telescope at the observatory. Shortly after the discovery of the space rock, NASA gave a detailed prediction of where and when the meteor would fall.

‘Attention: A small asteroid will soon disintegrate into a harmless fireball near Ningenhausen, west of Berlin, at 1:32 CET. If the situation is clear, the Guardians will see this!’ NASA announced on Twitter on the night of January 20.

A live camera in the northern German city of Leipzig captured an extremely bright meteor and watched it appear and disappear within seconds. The asteroid, which was about 3.3 feet (1 meter) wide before impact, began breaking apart about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Berlin, “probably knocking down a few meteors” along the way, postdoctoral research associate Denis Vida said. A professor of meteor physics at Western University in Canada told CBS News.

Sarnetsky has discovered hundreds of asteroids in recent years and was the first to detect asteroid 2022 EB5 about two hours before it hit Earth’s atmosphere. He also used data from the Konkoli Observatory to identify this entrance stone.

His observation is incredibly unusual. According to the European Space Agency, 99% of near-Earth asteroids smaller than 30 meters have not yet been discovered. The smaller the asteroid, the closer it has to be to Earth for scientists to detect it, which can make it harder to predict impacts, experts say.