A small asteroid (2008 TC3) several feet in diameter will enter the atmosphere over northern Sudan and head for the Red Sea next Tuesday, Oct 14th, says NASA. The event will occur at 5:46am local time and is expected to produce some natural fireworks.

“We estimate objects this size enter Earth’s atmosphere once every few months,” said a spokesman of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The unique aspect of this event is that it is the first time we have observed an impacting object during its final approach.”

It is expected to become an extremely bright fireball. It was first detected by the Mount Lemon telescope of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey early Monday and near the Earth Object Observation Program it’s called “Space Guard.”

This reminds me of the lawyer in a hospital who woke up one morning to see a fiery sunrise through the window and began to scream “the world’s on fire, the world’s on fire.” Indeed, lawyers worry about whether they will burn or not.

Perhaps we need to be concerned about the ultimate outcome of our planet, too, before it comes on fire. What do you think?

Image courtesy of Pranav Singh

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe free for our updates via RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and please do come back!