2008 TC3
2008 TC3 was the first asteroid discovered before hitting Earth; its fragments were recovered as the Almahata Sitta meteorites.
2008 TC3 was a small asteroid, about 4 metres across, discovered on 6 October 2008 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Within hours, astronomers worked out that it would strike Earth over northern Sudan about 20 hours later. It was the first time an asteroid impact had been predicted.
On 7 October 2008 it exploded high above the Nubian Desert at about 37 kilometres altitude, seen by a pilot and detected by satellites. In December 2008, a search led by Peter Jenniskens and Muawia Shaddad, with students and staff from the University of Khartoum, walked in a line across the desert and found the first fragments. More than 600 pieces were eventually collected, totalling about 10.5 kilograms. They were named Almahata Sitta, Arabic for 'Station Six', after a nearby railway station.
The meteorites proved to be mainly ureilites, mixed with many other meteorite types, showing the asteroid was a jumble of material from different sources.
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