Rock Science: First Meteorites Recovered on Earth from an Asteroid Tracked in Space
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 18:49
in Astronomy & Space
Last October, asteroid monitors at the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona in Tucson picked up a small object on an immediate collision course with Earth. The asteroid was too small to present a real threat--just a few meters across, it stood little chance of penetrating the atmosphere intact. Indeed, it exploded in a stratospheric fireball over northern Sudan less than 24 hours later--an event witnessed by people on the ground as well as the pilots of a KLM airliner--conforming well to astronomer's predictions for its trajectory. [More]