Not Quite A “Deep Impact”
October 7, 2008 — Richard Cochrane
An asteroid between 3 and 15 feet in size and discovered just hours ago at an Arizona observatory will enter Earth’s atmosphere harmlessly at approximately 10:46 p.m. Eastern time tonight ( 2:46 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time). There is no danger to people or property since the asteroid will not reach the ground.
It will burn up in the upper atmosphere, creating a brilliant fireball as it streaks across northern Africa .
When a meteoroid (small asteroid) enters the atmosphere, it compresses the air in front of it. That compression heats the air, which in turn heats the object, causing it to glow and vaporize. Once it starts to glow, the object is called a meteor.
A typical meteor comes from an object the size of a grain of sand so this meteor will be a real humdinger in comparison!
The movie DEEP IMPACT dramatized the catastrophic consequences of a massive impact, which this one will not be. Nevertheless it reminds us Earth travels among many other objects.
The Minor Planet Center , which is located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, serves as the worldwide clearinghouse for asteroid and comet observations. It collects, checks and disseminates observations and calculates orbits.
