| SPACE DAILY | SPACE WAR | TERRA DAILY | MARS DAILY | SPACE MART | SPACE TRAVEL | GPS DAILY | ENERGY DAILY |
 |
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Oct 08, 2008 NASA said Tuesday that its scientists had calculated a meteorite's trajectory and tracked its entry into Earth's atmosphere for the first time in the history of space exploration. The 2-meter meteorite entered the atmosphere over Sudan at about 02:46 GMT Tuesday and broke into fiery fragments seconds later. "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, California. "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 meteorite, designated 2008 TC3, was first spotted by the Mount Lemon telescope of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey early Monday. Its trajectory calculations were made under the Near Earth Object Observation Program, which plots the orbits of space objects to determine if they could be hazardous to the Earth.
Source: RIA Novosti Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links NASA JPL Asteroid and Comet Impact Danger To Earth - News and Science
Perseids Meteor Shower Creates September Surprise
Huntsville AL (SPX) Sep 16, 2008An unexpected flock of fireballs burst over the eastern United States early Sept. 9, but sharp-eyed Marshall Center astronomers were on the case. Lasting almost four hours, the shower contained about 25 meteors that were as bright as Jupiter and Venus in the morning sky. |
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook