Sara Guglielmetti No “ Armageddon ,” but yes, an asteroid hit Earth on September 6th, right in the Indian Ocean. Here’s what happened.
Asteroid hits Earth in the Indian Ocean: What happened?
At 6:07 PM on September 6, 2026, an asteroid struck Earth. It was a small fragment of rock from deep space that disintegrated in the skies above the Indian Ocean , northwest of Australia.
The asteroid, later renamed 2026 RW1, was detected just 7 hours and 22 minutes before impact by the University of Arizona's Mount Lemmon Survey. It was the thirteenth asteroid in history to be detected by astronomers before impacting our planet. Before receiving an official designation, it had the provisional name CERNQ52.
The Catalina Sky Survey was the first to spot it, with subsequent confirmation coming from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii. NASA 's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies then calculated the impact location with surgical precision: coordinates 13,77°S, 116,43°E, in the open ocean, far from inhabited coastlines.
According to estimates by the European Space Agency (ESA), the object's size was between 0,6 and 1,3 metres , while other sources, including the Minor Planet Center and independent tracking teams, have indicated an average diameter of about 0,8 metres.
Asteroid hits Earth: should we be concerned?
The answer is no. Asteroids of the above sizes do not pose a threat to Earth , as they almost always disintegrate in the upper atmosphere , without reaching the ground and therefore without causing damage. According to Adrien Coffinet on the Minor Planet Mailing List, 2026 RW1 is the first asteroid classified as an Aten-family object to be detected early before impact. All twelve previous cases involved Apollo-group asteroids.