Last month, a small asteroid burned up in Earth’s atmosphere off the coast of California, just hours after it was discovered and before “impact tracking” systems recorded its trajectory.

The asteroid, named 2024 UQ, was first discovered on October 22 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Hawaii, a network of four telescopes that scan the sky for space rocks on a collision course with Earth. Two hours later, the asteroid burned up over the Pacific Ocean, near California.

In this case, according to Livescience, the asteroid – measuring 1 meter in diameter – posed very little threat to anything on Earth’s surface. However, that it slipped off the radar is cause for concern.

The short time between detection and impact means that impact tracking systems, operated by the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center, did not receive tracking data on the incoming asteroid until after it hit Earth.