Cosmic Encounter Predicted—And Sighted

This won't be an asteroid impact. Rather, observers have found a large space rock, or micro-asteroid, that will run into Earth's atmosphere over northern Sudan at 2:46 Tuesday, or 10:46 eastern daylight time tonight. See the announcement from the Near Earth Object Program at JPL.

The object is less than 5 meters across and is not expected to do anything more than make a spectacular fireball in the upper atmosphere, possibly followed by a loud boom. It will come in from the northeast about 19 degrees above the horizon and move southwest at about 13 kilometers per second. In this telescopic image, the meteoroid is the dot in the center, surrounded by stars that are smeared as the telescope tracks the rock. It was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey last night.

Cosmic impacts happen all the time, and events of this size happen about a dozen times per year. But this is the first time one has been spotted ahead of time. Oh yes, and on the Torino scale of cosmic impact hazard, this one will rate a zero—good for a show, with no hazard expected for anyone.

UPDATE: Spaceweather.com reports that an airliner over the Sahara spotted the flash of the asteroid's entry at the predicted time.

Image courtesy Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics