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Small Asteroid Predicted to Cause Brilliant Fireball over Northern Sudan
Don Yeomans
NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
October 6, 2008
A very small, few-meter sized asteroid, designated 2008 TC3, was found
Monday morning by the Catalina Sky Survey from their observatory near
Tucson Arizona. Preliminary orbital computations by the Minor Planet
Center suggested an atmospheric entry of this object within a day of
discovery. JPL confirmed that an atmospheric impact will very likely
occur during early morning twilight over northern Sudan, north-eastern
Africa, at 2:46 UT Tuesday morning. The fireball, which could be
brilliant, will travel west to east (from azimuth = 281 degrees) at a
relative atmospheric impact velocity of 12.8 km/s and arrive at a very
low angle (19 degrees) to the local horizon. It is very unlikely that
any sizable fragments will survive passage through the Earth's atmosphere.
Objects of this size would be expected to enter the Earth's atmosphere
every few months on average but this is the first time such an event has
been predicted ahead of time.
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