INCOMING!, Detection and observation of Earth-approaching asteroids. Options

[nprev]

"Major Bolide Forecast Tonight; No Damage Expected" (S&T from Holder's link.)


What a headline!!! What a time to be alive!!! Nigel is absolutely right; this is marvelous, this is an expansion of our general situational awareness. We've always grown thereby through such things.

[Hungry4info]

If I did the math right, just a few more minutes until impact.

Two ways to look at it.

-> Small asteroid hits planet. No damage done.
-> Comparatively HUGE freaking Planet hits an asteroid, obliterating it. Owned.

Either way, the asteroid will be one with the planet. I look forward to pictures (I hope we get some).

[claurel]

Here's a Celestia simulation of 2008 TC3's entry into Earth's atmopshere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FW3oaZgCz0

The green circle indicates the region where the asteroid is visible over the horizon. The trajectory of 2008 TC3 was taken from HORIZONS (about an hour ago.)

--Chris

[dmuller]

Here's a Celestia simulation of 2008 TC3's entry into Earth's atmopshere:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FW3oaZgCz0

Judging from that clip, 2008TC3 is gonna come down at / explode over the Nubian Desert, somewhere in the center of the triangle made up by the cities Wadi Halfa, Atbara & Port Sudan. Man, I flew over there some years ago!

EDIT: The Horizons system is very slow ... must have a lot of traffic!

[Hungry4info]

Going to? Has it already? Or did I again get my math wrong with time conversions? Lol.

[tedstryk]

Going to? Has it already? Or did I again get my math wrong with time conversions? Lol.

The time given was 10:46 EDT (my time zone). It is now 10:19 EDT. I plan to go outside....we are far too far away, but I figure that just in case it has some smaller cousins, it couldn't hurt to go take a look.

[claurel]

Here's a Celestia simulation of 2008 TC3's entry into Earth's atmopshere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FW3oaZgCz0

The green circle indicates the region where the asteroid is visible over the horizon. The trajectory of 2008 TC3 was taken from HORIZONS (about an hour ago.)

This video gives the view from 2008 TC3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxa2PUluqVU
(Itokawa is standing in for 2008 TC3.)

The Celestia add-on used for both simulations is here: http://www.shatters.net/~claurel/celestia/...ids/2008tc3.zip
It requires a very recent version of Celestia, however; I'll make a more widely usable available post-impact.

--Chris

[Holder of the Tw...]

I will take the liberty of posting this quote from Emily's blog over at Planetary.org:

"Thanks to Ron Baalke for posting the following, from JPL asteroid scientist Paul Chodas, on the Minor Planets Mailing List:
Update - 6:45 PM PDT (1 hour prior to atmospheric entry)

Since its discovery barely a day ago, 2008 TC3 has been observed extensively by astronomers around the world, and as a result, our orbit predictions have become very precise. We estimate that this object will enter the Earth's atmosphere at around 2:45:28 UTC and reach maximum deceleration around 2:45:54 UTC at an altitude of about 14 km. These times are uncertain by +/- 15 seconds or so. The time at which any fragments might reach the ground depends a great deal on the physical properties of the object, but should be around 2:46:20 UTC +/- 40 seconds."


Well, the asteroid has passed into the earth's shadow, so telescope observations are at an end now.

Just waiting for the fireworks ...

[volcanopele]

As 2008 TC3 passes over Niger, let's us have a moment of silence for this little asteroid that could. 2008 TC3 started life when it was freed from sub-surface of a larger asteroid. For millions of years it wondered. Unloved. Uncared for. Unnoticed. Now, as it's end approachs, in a fiery burst of light, people care for this little guy.

God speed little doodle.

Now at 1,900 km above north africa.

[stevesliva]

And the earth emits a contented belch.

[deglr6328]

Well that was that....it would seem. Looks like we're all still here! I doubt anyone caught it. It hit news outlets so late in the day and it's almost 3am there. Even with seemingly everybody these days having a cameraphone on them... still doubtful.

[volcanopele]

At last check, Earth still here.

2008 TC3...not so much

[deglr6328]

my mistake, nearly 5am local time rather than 3 UTC.

[dmuller]

I can confirm that Australia is still here as well at 1:55 PM Sydney summer time ... and I couldnt even put up a realtime simulation (I was 4 minutes late) [at least the decision whether to use Earth Received Time or Space Object Event Time would have been easy this time around]. Just imagine this had been a very dark 'biggie' - the stock markets wouldn't even had time to crash further

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Any Videos or Photos of the event yet???