A small asteroid hit Earth's atmosphere over the Norwegian Sea before disintegrating on March 11, 2022. But this event wasn't a complete surprise: Astronomers knew it was on a collision course, predicting exactly where and when the impact would happen.

Two hours before the asteroid made impact, K. Sarneczky at the Piszkéstető Observatory in northern Hungary first reported observations of the small object to the Minor Planet Center—the internationally recognized clearinghouse for the position measurements of small celestial bodies. The object was posted on the Minor Planet Center's Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page to flag it for additional observations that would confirm it as a previously unknown asteroid.

NASA's "Scout" impact hazard assessment system then took these early measurements to calculate the trajectory of 2022 EB5. As soon as Scout determined that 2022 EB5 was going to hit Earth's atmosphere, the system alerted the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, and flagged the object on the Scout webpage to notify the near-Earth object observing community. Maintained by CNEOS at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Scout automatically searches the Minor Planet Center's database for possible new short-term impactors.