2008 TC3

2008 TC3

2008 TC3 was an 80-tonne, 4. 1-meter diameter asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere on October 7, 2008. It exploded at an estimated 37 kilometers above the Nubian Desert in Sudan. Some 600 meteorites, weighing a total of 10. 5 kilograms, were recovered; many of these belonged to a rare type known as ureilites.

About 2008 TC3 in brief

Summary 2008 TC32008 TC3 was an 80-tonne, 4. 1-meter diameter asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere on October 7, 2008. It exploded at an estimated 37 kilometers above the Nubian Desert in Sudan. Some 600 meteorites, weighing a total of 10. 5 kilograms, were recovered; many of these belonged to a rare type known as ureilites, which contain, among other minerals, nanodiamonds. It was the first time that an asteroid impact had been predicted before its entry into the atmosphere as a meteor. The asteroid was discovered by Richard A. Kowalski at the Catalina Sky Survey 1.

5-meter telescope at Mount Lemmon, north of Tucson, Arizona, US, on October 6, 06: 39 UTC, 19 hours before the impact. In total, 586 astrometric and almost as many photometric observations were performed by 27 amateur and professional observers in less than 19 hours and reported to the Minor Planet Center. A low-resolution image of the explosion was captured by the weather satellite Meteosat 8. The meteor’s light was so intense that it lit up the sky like a full moon and an airliner 1,400 km away reported seeing the bright flash.