Asteroid lights up night sky

NASA’S JET PROPULSION LABS, the guys who spend more time grounding shuttles than putting them up there, report that the Catalina Sky Survey has spotted an asteroid on its final approach to Earth.

The asteroid will have entered the atmosphere over Northern Sudan by now, but instead of the sci-fi action flick “it’s gonna destroy all life on Earth”, the happy-go-lucky chunk of space debris will have lit up on entry and created a great fireworks show. Unfortunately there are no reports of it landing on the heads of certain people in Sudan.

Creatively named 2008 TC3, the ‘several feet in diameter’ asteroid is one amongst many similar chunks of debris that drop in on Earth every few months, but this is the first that is pre-emptively detected and documented by the Near Earth Observation Program.

No fragments are expected to survive, but even if they did, they'd go plop in the Red Sea, according to JPL.

The event in itself is important as it marks the first time such an object is detected in its final approach. In this case, it was detected with about 24 hours notice – giving scientists ample time to pull their thumbs out and start taking photos for posterity.

L'Inq
JPL