Asteroid 2008 TC3
The first asteroid ever seen in space before it hit Earth.
Key facts
- When
- 7 October 2008, 02.46 UTC
- Where
- Nubian Desert, northern Sudan, Sudan
- What hit
- about 4 m across, weighing perhaps 80 tonnes
- Era
- The sensor age, 2000 onwards
- Location
- 20.80° N, 32.40° E
About 1 to 2 kilotons of TNT, released about 37 km up.
About a tenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
What happened
On 6 October 2008 the astronomer Richard Kowalski, working with a survey telescope in Arizona, spotted a faint moving point of light. Within hours it was clear that this small asteroid, named 2008 TC3, would strike Earth about 20 hours after it was found.
Observatories around the world tracked it. As predicted, it entered the atmosphere over northern Sudan before dawn and exploded high above the desert. A weather satellite recorded the flash, and the crew of an airliner over Chad saw it.
Meteorites were not expected to survive, but in December 2008 the astronomer Peter Jenniskens and Muawia Shaddad of the University of Khartoum led a search with students and staff walking in lines across the desert. They found the first stone within hours, and in the end about 600 fragments with a total mass of about 10.5 kg.
Effects
None on the ground. The stones fell over a strip of empty desert about 30 km long.
The evidence
The telescope observations, satellite and infrasound records, and the meteorites, called Almahata Sitta, which means 'Station Six' after a railway station nearby. They are mostly ureilites, but include pieces of several other meteorite types, showing that the asteroid was a jumble of different rocks.
Did you know?
2008 TC3 was the first time anyone had linked a meteorite to an asteroid that had been seen in space.
Almahata Sitta stones contain tiny diamonds.
Related pages
How is impact energy measured? See energy explained, or try the impact calculator.