Meteorites that reach the ground come from asteroids' backsides
, a six-meter rock that entered the atmosphere in 2008. Given its size, astronomers spotted the asteroid some 20 hours before it disintegrated, allowing them to measure its size and shape, as well as track its exact trajectory — many meteors are surprises, so the acquisition of this kind of data is rare.
After it exploded in the atmosphere, meteorites rained down across the Nubian Desert in Sudan across an area some 4.3 by 18.6 miles in size. Jenniskens organized the recovery and cataloging of the meteorites with University of Khartoum professor Muawia Shaddad and his students. They found more than 600 meteorites from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a fist. Astronomer Peter Jenniskens walks among meteorites from the asteroid 2008 TC3 in the Nubian Desert of Sudan.
The smaller fragments were spread across a long, narrow area within the debris field that matched the trajectory of the asteroid, while the larger fragments deviated more widely from the asteroid's path. These findings were a surprise to the team. Using available data on the size, shape, and trajectory of asteroid 2008 TC3, theoretical astronomer Darrel Robertson of NASA's Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at NASA Ames Research Center created a computer model to simulate the asteroid's breakup.
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