08-October-2008, 12:29 AM
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Order of Kilopi
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 13,364
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Planetary Society Weblog: The full story of Earth-impacting asteroid 2008 TC3
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To briefly review: the night before last (my time), or at 06:38 UTC on October 6, astronomers at the University of Arizona discovered an object provisionally called 8TA9D69 that appeared to be on a collision course with Earth. Three other observatories reported sightings within the next few hours -- Sabino Canyon and Siding Spring in Arizona and a Royal Astronomical Society site in Moorook, Australia. Together these four observers provided enough data on the object so that a Minor Planet Electronic Circular was issued at 14:59 UTC the same day, giving 8TA9D69 the more formal name 2008 TC3, and advising the astronomical community that "The nominal orbit given above has 2008 TC3 coming to within one earth radius around Oct. 7.1. The absolute magnitude indicates that the object will not survive passage through the atmosphere. Steve Chesley (JPL) reports that atmospheric entry will occur on 2008 Oct 07 0246 UTC over northern Sudan."
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As yet there are no confirmed images of the fireball -- it's possible there may never be any. There is one possible sighting: one resourceful enthusiast, Jacob Kuiper, the General Aviation meteorologist at the National Weather Service in the Netherlands, called an official of the Air-France-KLM airline at the Amsterdam airport to inform him "about the possibility that crews of their airliners in the vicinity of impact would have a chance to see a fireball. And it was a success!
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And for those who enjoy worrying:
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But of course we now have to ask ourselves: what would have happened if the object was much bigger than 2 meters in diameter? Reassuringly, the first thing that would have happened is that the detection most likely would have happened much earlier. The bigger and more hazardous an object is, the brighter it is, and the sooner we will detect it. We will likely have way more than 20 hours' warning of an incoming dangerous object. Still, though, the warning time for a tens-of-meter-diameter object could only be measured in days. If we'd had three days' warning of a dangerous impactor heading for Sudan, what could the world have done?
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Same as hurricane/cyclone/typhoon warnings, no? Do our best to help move those affected.
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