A small asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere and exploded into a fireball above Russia’s Far East early on Wednesday.

The asteroid entered the atmosphere at 1.15am local time on Wednesday (4.15pm GMT on Tuesday) and had a diameter of 70cm, the European Space Agency said.

People in the remote region of Yakutia, northeastern Siberia, braved snow and freezing temperatures to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon.

The agency said they spotted the asteroid 12 hours before it appeared in the sky.

Yakutia’s emergency ministry said all official bodies were placed on alert as the asteroid approached but that no damage had been reported after its descent.

The ministry said: “Residents of Olekminsk and Lensk districts were able to observe in the night a tail similar to a comet and a flash.”

Before the asteroid appeared, Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University in Belfast, said: “It’s a small one, but it will still be quite spectacular, visible for hundreds of kilometres.”

He told the New Scientist that the early warning was a clear sign of space agencies’ progress in spotting rocks before they impact Earth.

The asteroid was the 11th ever confirmed “imminent impactor” to be detected before it breached Earth’s atmosphere.