NASA Was Able to Predict the Meteoroid Dropping to Sudan

Written by Marko on October 12, 2008

Few days ago a small meteoroid dropped into the atmosphere above Sudan, and NASA was able to predict this phenomenon. 2 meters wide meteoroid that dropped into our atmosphere and burned into pieces, was no threat the life on Earth. Although this small meteoroid was no dangerous, it must have lightened up the sky over Africa. Similar bolidi was seen in Finland few months ago.

“This is the very first time we predicted an object before hitting the planet“, says Don Yeomans from NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). “We predict that this kind of object fall into our atmosphere every second month”, continues Don Yeomans.

Although it might sound not too staggering, this is an important moment in the history of asteroid collision prediction. As soon as the prediction robots get enhanced, we most probably will hear this kind of warnings more frequently.

Some newspapers have called this object a meteoroid, while others have named it an asteroid. Which one is the right name? One recommendation says that if the radius of an object is more than 10 meters, it should be called an asteroid. If it’s less than 10 meters, the object should be called as meteoroid.

Source [Nasa]

Comments

  • 01-05-2009
    4:41 am

    buzandroses

    Nice article about astronomy. I don’t know much about it, but it seem interesting. I think it would be nice to drop here more often. Thanks for the info


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