A relatively small asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere last night above Sudan. Just as predicted, the space object disintegrated upon entering our atmosphere, creating a ball of fire over the African country, and leaving no damages.

The initial estimations revealed that the asteroid was between 3 and 15 feet in size, too small to survive the Earth atmosphere passage and hit Earth.

The story is of particular importance for scientists, in case a bigger asteroid would ever have the same trajectory as this one. “The unique aspect of this event is that it is the first time we have observed an impacting object during its final approach,” said Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Although astronomers were only able to establish the object and its trajectory hours before impact, it would still be enough to evacuate people in the area. Fortunately, this wasn’t en emergency case, as the asteroid died in a fiery display above Sudan.

The first observations on the space rock originated from the Mount Lemmon telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey on early Monday, but the orbit was determined later on.

Observations from astronomers all over the world, following its recent discovery, helped astronomers establish the course of the asteroid, and make accurate predictions on its orbit.

This is not an unusual event for Earth, as asteroids of similar sizes come in contact with our planet’s atmosphere several times a year. However, it is of extreme importance that the trajectory predictions were accurate.