"It was the fifth time an asteroid was spotted hours before it hit Earth and the first time it's happened since 2019." by Jordan Mendoza via Yahoo news image by Родион Журавлёв - Pixabay An asteroid around the size of a refrigerator was spotted hours before it hit Earth's atmosphere, and while it wasn't dangerous, it marked the fifth time in history an asteroid was detected right before hitting our planet. On March 11, astronomer Krisztian Sarneczky noticed an asteroid at the Piszkéstető Observatory in Hungary. Sarneczky reported it to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, which confirmed it was the first time the asteroid had been observed. NASA's "Scout" system, which constantly searches the Minor Planet Center's database for any potential impacts, then calculated the asteroid's orbit, finding that the asteroid would certainly hit Earth. The system then notified the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California