A small asteroid discovered on Wednesday harmlessly burned up in Earth’s atmosphere the same day, NASA said. The asteroid — about 3 feet across — was spotted by astronomers in Arizona and broke apart over the coast of the Philippines hours after the discovery.

A bright fireball was spotted over northern Philippines shortly after midnight on Thursday as an asteroid burned up in the atmosphere. The asteroid, measuring roughly 1m (3.2 feet), was "harmless" but created a "spectacular fireball", the European Space Agency (ESA) said.