The object entered Earth's atmosphere over the Irkutsk Oblast of Siberia shortly after midnight on September 25, 2002. Witnesses across a wide area reported seeing an intensely bright fireball - brighter than the full moon - traveling from south to north. Some described it as blue-white; others said it was orange or yellow.

The fireball was visible for about 30 seconds before the sky lit up with a brilliant flash. Seconds later, a powerful sound wave rolled across the taiga - a deep rumble that some compared to continuous thunder, others to artillery fire. Windows rattled in towns 60 kilometers away.

The object exploded at an altitude of approximately 30 kilometers. The explosion released energy estimated at about 0.2 kilotons of TNT - significant, but far smaller than Tunguska's estimated 10-15 megatons. Still, it was enough to flatten trees across roughly one square kilometer of remote forest.

US military satellites detected the explosion's infrared signature and confirmed it as a bolide - a meteor that explodes in the atmosphere. The satellites provided an independent verification of the location and timing, helping scientists locate the impact zone in the vast Siberian wilderness.

Russian scientists reached the impact zone in late October 2002. What they found was hauntingly similar to accounts of Tunguska nearly a century earlier: trees knocked down in a radial pattern, all pointing away from a central point. Unlike Tunguska, the zone was small enough to survey completely.

The team found no crater and no meteorite fragments at first. This was consistent with an airburst - the meteor had exploded before reaching the ground. Later expeditions would find small metallic fragments, but the main body had vaporized in the explosion.

Analysis suggested the object was probably a stony asteroid about 8-10 meters in diameter, weighing roughly 500-1,000 tons. Objects this size enter Earth's atmosphere several times per year, but most explode over oceans or uninhabited areas and go unnoticed.

The Vitim object was small by cosmic standards. An asteroid 50 meters across - the estimated size of the Tunguska impactor - would release hundreds of times more energy. An asteroid a kilometer across would cause global catastrophe. The Vitim event was a reminder that space is not empty and that Earth is not immune.

The Vitim event received little attention outside scientific circles. It happened in remote Siberia. No one was killed or injured. The damage was limited to trees that no one owned. But for astronomers tracking near-Earth objects, it was significant - proof that Tunguska-type events, while rare, are not unique.

The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, which injured 1,500 people and damaged thousands of buildings, would later drive this point home more dramatically. But Vitim had already shown that cosmic impacts are not ancient history. They happen today. They will happen again. And often, as at Vitim, we have no warning at all.