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Last week, an asteroid measuring 3 feet in diameter burned up off the California coast just hours after being detected. According to NASA, asteroids are small, rocky remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system roughly 4.6 billion years ago.

Asteroids are usually found orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter in an area known as the “asteroid belt.” They can range from just a few feet across to several hundred miles in diameter.

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NASA keeps track of asteroids in our solar system and has tracked 1.4 million orbiting in space. While the larger asteroids are easier to detect, scientists believe thousands are undetected. This is a combination of the fact that space is so big and some of these asteroids are too difficult to detect far away.

Many of them, like the one discovered last week, aren't detected until they are very close to Earth. NASA scientists say it’s unlikely a large asteroid will impact Earth in our lifetime, but they are constantly looking for anything headed our way.

J​ennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.