The First Asteroid Caught Before Impact
In 2008, astronomers spotted an asteroid 19 hours before it hit Earth, for the first time ever. Students then found its pieces in the Sudanese desert.
What was reported
On 6 October 2008, an astronomer at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a small asteroid, a few metres across, named 2008 TC3. Calculations showed it would hit Earth in about 19 hours, over northern Sudan. It was the first time an asteroid had been seen in space before striking the planet.
Early on 7 October, it exploded in the atmosphere above the Nubian Desert in a brilliant fireball, seen by a pilot and by people on the ground, including workers at a remote railway station called Almahata Sitta.
Explanations offered
In December, astronomer Peter Jenniskens and Muawia Shaddad of the University of Khartoum led a team of students and staff who walked across the desert in a line, and found about 600 fragments. The meteorite, named Almahata Sitta, turned out to be a rare type. It showed that astronomers could predict and recover a strike.
- When
- 7 October 2008
- Where
- Nubian Desert, Sudan
- Witnesses
- Astronomers, a train station worker and university students
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.