A celestial object explodes in the Earth's atmosphere

Last week an astronomical object exploded in the sky of Africa and did not harm the Earth, exactly as astronomers predicted for the first time.

The object is about the size of a dining table, as astronomers predicted; and they also guessed that the meteor left nothing after the explosion, apart from a few small pieces falling on the surface of the globe.

No photographs of the explosion were taken due to the distance from the object's path to Sudan. But the explosion is recorded by a low-noise receiver (sound has a frequency below the level of human hearing) located in Kenya. Based on the negative data, Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario estimated that the object exploded at 0243 UT (international coordinated time) with an energy level of 1,100-2,100 tons of TNT.

Earlier, NASA observers some other scientists announced that the meteorite - named 8TA9D69 - will enter the atmosphere at 10:46 pm on October 7 (0246 international time) in northern Sudan. Although there are similar events that happen a few times a year, they have never been predicted exactly like this time. It is expected that the object will create a brilliant fireball that the naked eye can see, and even more beautiful than other meteor cases when the debris of the celestial body passes through the Earth's atmosphere.

"A normal meteor is born from an object the size of a grain of sand," explains Gareth Williams of the Small Planet Research Center just before the event. "This meteor will truly be the most beautiful star!"

Only one case confirmed that this meteor was expected. According to Spaceweather.com, Jacob Kuiper, an aviation meteorologist at the Dutch National Weather Center, told pilots to watch carefully.

"I was asserted by a pilot of the Royal Dutch airline (KLM) at about 750 nautical miles southeast of the position predicted to collide, and observed the fire in time. Shortly before the estimated time of the explosion - 0246 UTC, Kuiper said. "Because it is too far away, it is not clear to observe this interesting phenomenon, but still insists that a bright meteor has been seen at the project site. guess".

The meteorite discovered by a study is being carried out at Mount Lemmon - operated by the University of Arizona - part of a NASA-funded program called Catalina Sky Survey (funded by NASA) to search for objects near Earth.