Summary

2026 RW1 was the thirteenth asteroid discovered on an impact trajectory, and the second in 2026. Discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey's Mt. Lemmon station, in Arizona, USA, it impacted our planet about 6.5 hours later in the Indian Ocean, between Western Australia and the Lesser Sunda Islands.

Discovery circumstances and follow-up

After discovery from Mt. Lemmon, the asteroid was quickly followed up by three facilities in the US South-West, and subsequently by our team using the Zadko and LCO Faulkes South telescopes in Australia, right until the object entered Earth's shadow and disappeared from view. Before impact, two prediscovery positions from the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope were also reported, further refining the impact trajectory to sub-kilometre and sub-second levels.

Trajectory in Space

In the video below, the vernal equinox points to the right side of the image. The view is tilted by approximately 45 degrees above the Ecliptic.

Trajectory Relative to the Earth

The video below shows the trajectory in space of 2026 RW1 in the hours prior to its impact with Earth.

2D Impact Corridor

The plot below shows the 5-sigma entry corridor on the ground, without including atmospheric effects. Due to its extremely small extent, the corridor appears as a single point in the image.

3D Impact Corridor

The highlighted area in the animation below represents the 1-σ (in red) and the 3-σ (in orange) fall area of the propagated object without including the atmospheric effects.

Atmospheric phase details 

The atmospheric impact happened over the Indian Ocean hundreds of kilometers off-coast, however the photographer Richard Young managed to image the fireball from Broome (Western Australia). Guided by the researchers of the Desert Fireball Network / Curtin University, he took a picture of the fireball at 780 km of distance.

Search for meteorites

No meteorites could be recovered due to the location of the impact point over oceanic waters.