2008 TC3 Fragments Recovered!!!

According to an article appeared few hours ago on New Scientist website, a team of meteorite hunters, using data provided by NASA, has finally has found fragments of the asteroid 2008 TC3 plunged into the atmosphere above Sudan on 7 October 2008.

Here You can find some of the post appeared on this blog about 2008 TC3 story:

http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2008/10/small-asteroid-2008-tc3-to-hit-earth.html

http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2008/10/2008-tc3-animation.html

http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2008/10/2008-tc3-update-impact-flash-imaged.html

http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2008/11/2008-tc3-trail-imaged-over-northern.html

A photo of one of the fragments recovered can be seen in the slides of a presentation reported at a United Nations meeting discussing near-Earth object (NEO) impacts (slide number 19):

 (courtesy of P. Jennisken - SETI Institute)

It seems that the discovery team, including well-know meteorite expert Peter Jenniskens, has already submitted a study about the find to a scientific journal, but no more information are available at present.

UPDATE The paper "The recovery of asteroid 2008 TC3" by M. H. SHADDAD, P. JENNISKENS et al. is available here

by Ernesto Guido

2008 TC3 Update - Impact Flash Imaged from Satellite

Impact Flash Imaged from Satellite

While ground pictures of the fireball are still missing (the event occurred in a remote area over northern Sudan), it looks like finally there is an image of the impact flash.

The explosion was imaged by the weather satellite Meteosat 8.

The image is available at SpaceWeather.com: http://tinyurl.com/3r2ool

According to J. Borovicka, Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, the bright spot on the images taken by the weather satellite Meteosat 8 has been noticed by Z. Charvat. This bright spot likely corresponds to the atmospheric entry of 2008 TC_3 over northern Sudan (see - IAU Circular No. 8994).

Impactor 2008 TC3 entering Earth' shadow

Roughly one hour before expected atmospheric impact over northern Sudan, 2008 TC3 entered Earth' shadow becoming invisible until the impact.

The entry in the Earth' shadow has been imaged by La Sagra Sky Survey, Spain. Their nice image is here:

http://www.minorplanets.org/OLS/2008_TC3/

This image also shows a periodic light variation along the trail that indicates a fast rotation. The same effect is evident in the image obtained by italian astronomer Walter Boschin at the 3.58m diameter Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG):

by Ernesto Guido