ASTEROID 2008 TC3: A small, newly-discovered asteroid named 2008 TC3 is

approaching Earth and chances are good that it will hit. Measuring only

a few meters across, the space rock poses no threat to people or

structures on the ground, but it should create a spectacular fireball,

releasing about a kiloton of energy as it disintegrates and explodes in

the high atmosphere. At least one expert estimates that atmospheric

entry will occur on Oct 7th at 0246 UTC over northern Sudan. Stay tuned

to http://spaceweather.com for more information and updates to this

developing story.

NOW MORE ON THIS FROM NASA

Small Asteroid To Light Up Sky Over Africa

WASHINGTON -- An asteroid measuring several feet in diameter is expected to enter the atmosphere over northern Sudan before dawn Tuesday, setting off a potentially brilliant natural fireworks display.

It is unlikely any sizable fragments will survive the fiery passage through Earth's atmosphere. The event is expected to occur at 5:46 a.m. local time (10:46 p.m. EDT Monday).

"We estimate objects this size enter Earth's atmosphere once every few months," said Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The unique aspect of this event is that it is the first time we have observed an impacting object during its final approach."

The small space rock, designated 2008 TC3, will be traveling on an eastward trajectory that will carry it toward the Red Sea.

"Observers in the region could be in for quite a show," Yeomans said. "When the object enters the atmosphere, it could become an extremely bright fireball."

The small space rock first was observed by the Mount Lemon telescope of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey early Monday. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

For more information, visit:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asteroid reportedly streaks over Africa

Space boulder posed ‘no risk to those on the ground,’ astronomers said

ASTEROID IMPACT: If predictions were correct, asteroid 2008 TC3 hit Earth this morning (Oct. 7th at 0246 UT), exploding in the atmosphere over northern Sudan like a kiloton of TNT and creating a fireball as bright as a full Moon. Most of the 3-meter-wide asteroid would have vaporized in the atmosphere with only small pieces possibly reaching the ground as meteorites.

The following potentially confirming report comes from Jacob Kuiper, General Aviation meteorologist at the National Weather Service in the Netherlands: "Half an hour before the predicted impact of asteroid 2008 TC3, I informed an official of Air-France-KLM at Amsterdam airport 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! I have received confirmation that a KLM airliner, roughly 750 nautical miles southwest of the predicted atmospheric impact position, has observed a short flash just before the expected impact time 0246 UTC. Because of the distance it was not a very large phenomenon, but still a confirmation that some bright meteor has been seen in the predicted direction. Projected on an infrared satellite-image of Meteosat-7 of 0300 UTC, I have indicated the position of the plane (+) and the predicted impact area in Sudan (0)."

2008 TC3 was discovered on Oct. 6th by astronomers using the Mt. Lemmon telescope in Arizona as part of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey for near-Earth objects. Asteroids the size of 2008 TC3 hit Earth every few months, but this is the first time one has been discovered before it hit.

The three paragraphs above are from Spaceweather.com for 2008 October 7

Updated 2:17 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 7, 2008 by

A very small asteroid was detected Monday on a course heading for Africa, and observers reported that the object apparently burned up in the atmosphere.

By all accounts, the boulder-sized object did not strike Earth itself.

The event marked the first time an asteroid's fall toward Earth was predicted in advance, astronomers said.

The space rock, designated Asteroid 2008 TC3, was thought to be 3 to 15 feet (1 to 5 meters) in diameter and posed "no risk to those on the ground," said David Morrison of NASA's Ames Research Center. A similar-sized object during the day would have likely gone unnoticed, he said.

Astronomers predicted that the fiery entry would appear like a very bright shooting star known as a fireball or bolide.

"A typical meteor comes from an object the size of a grain of sand," Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., said Monday. "This meteor will be a real humdinger in comparison!"

SpaceWeather.com quoted Dutch aviation meteorologist Jacob Kuiper as saying that an airline crew witnessed a flash that matched the expected coordinates for the fireball.

"Half an hour before the predicted impact of Asteroid 2008 TC3, I informed an official of Air-France-KLM at Amsterdam airport 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!" Kuiper told SpaceWeather.com.

"I have received confirmation that a KLM airliner, roughly 750 nautical miles southwest of the predicted atmospheric impact position, has observed a short flash just before the expected impact time 0246 UTC," Kuiper was quoted as saying. "Because of the distance it was not a very large phenomenon, but still a confirmation that some bright meteor has been seen in the predicted direction."

The object was discovered by an ongoing survey at Mount Lemmon run by the University of Arizona. The atmospheric entry was to occur at 10:46 p.m. ET Monday (0246 UTC or 5:46 a.m. local time Tuesday) over northern Sudan, according to Steve Chesley of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

AND FROM WIKIPEDIA

2008 TC3 was a meteoroid approximately two to four meters in diameter that impacted the Earth at 2008-10-07 02:46 UTC.^[1] It was first observed about a day before the impact.

The meteoroid is believed to have impacted in northern Sudan, at a velocity of 12.8 kilometers per second, and probably exploded tens of kilometers in the air with an energy of around a kiloton.

The trajectory showed intersection with Earth's surface at roughly 33.5 degrees east, 20.5 degrees north, though the object was expected to break up perhaps 1-200 kilometers west as it descended, somewhat east of the Nile river, and about 100 kilometers south of the Egypt/Sudan border.^[2]

The meteoroid was notable as the first earth-impacting asteroid spotted and tracked prior to impact.

• Remanzacco Observatory photographs of the incoming space rock

  • Animation of impact from the asteroid's point of view (Pasquale Tricarico of the Planetary Science Institute)

• 1. ^ "Incoming!!!".

  2. ^ [1]

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3"

Categories: Near-Earth asteroids

Bizarre exoplanet found by CoRoT:

density higher than lead!

The little space observatory COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity is actually a planet or a failed star. The object, named COROT-exo-3b, is about the size of Jupiter, but packs more than 20 times the mass. It takes only 4 days and 6 hours to orbit its parent star, which is slightly larger than the Sun. This odd find does not fall into either planets or conventional category of brown dwarfs. COROT-exo-3b might turn out to be a rare object found by sheer luck. But it might just be a member of a new-found family of very massive planets that encircle stars more massive than our Sun. The more massive the star, the more massive the planet? As a planet, COROT-exo-3b would be the most massive and the densest found to date - more than twice as dense as lead. Studying it will help them better understand how to categorize such objects