Asteroid Explodes Over Sudan

radioweather writes "A recently discovered Apollo Asteroid, 2008 TC3, exploded over Sudan at about 1046 EDT on October 7, 2008, according to astronomer Tim Spahr of Harvard University 2008 TC3 was discovered on Monday by an observer at the Mt Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. 2008 TC3 is notable in that it is the first Asteroid of its size that was identified before impact and tracking it put the entire Spaceguard tracking system to an extreme test. TC3 is estimated to be only two to five meters in diameter but exploded with the force of a one kiloton of explosive power." We mentioned the asteroid last on Monday, when it was only at a 99.8 percent chance of colliding with Earth.

Comments

Re:Fine, but no one really saw it

[gardyloo]

More comprehensive information from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3

Re:Why is this news?

[compro01]

It's news because this is the first time we detected one before it hit and were able to track its descent.