An asteroid measuring about 70 centimeters in diameter was spotted by astronomers before burning up harmlessly but spectacularly in the atmosphere over Siberia.

The European Space Agency (ESA) issued an alert at 9:27 a.m. GMT, warning that the space rock would light up the sky over northern Siberia around 11:15 p.m. local time (4:15 p.m. GMT).

Alan Fitzsimmons from Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom said before the event that an object of this size would not pose a threat to people on the ground, but the early warning was a positive sign of our ability to detect these objects before they hit hitting the earth is increasing.

“It’s small, but it’s still pretty spectacular,” says Fitzsimmons. “It will be dark over the impact site and a very impressive, very bright fireball will be visible in the sky for several hundred kilometers.”

Several objects of this size hit Earth every year, and we can now detect them earlier and earlier. The first was discovered in 2008. The next one came six years later, but the pace of observations is increasing: C0WEPC5, as today’s asteroid is called, is the fourth predicted impact on Earth this year.

Early warning of small asteroids gives astronomers the opportunity to observe them and collect data or even try to collect tiny fragments that survive. According to Fitzsimmons, the first such predicted impact in 2008 resulted in the recovery of small parts of the rock and produced important scientific findings. “The nice thing about this was that the reflectivity of the meteorites exactly matched the reflectivity measured by telescopes before the impact, giving you this really nice direct connection between what we saw out there in space and what we saw later found on the ground, showed,” he says.

If we detect larger and more dangerous objects heading toward Earth, this could provide an opportunity to divert them or at least evacuate vulnerable areas.

Both NASA and ESA now have dedicated asteroid discovery and tracking programs, involving a large network of dedicated observatories as well as amateur astronomers who measure the positions of known objects so that their orbits can be better understood and predicted.

This latest asteroid was discovered by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which has four telescopes around the world and is designed to warn of impacts for up to a week.

“It’s a win for science, and (for) anyone who happens to be in Siberia tonight, there’s something to take their mind off what will undoubtedly be pretty chilly temperatures,” Fitzsimmons said.