The impact and recovery of asteroid 2008 TC3 - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue Nature Année : 2009

The impact and recovery of asteroid 2008 TC3

L. Le
  • Fonction : Auteur
E. Tagliaferri
  • Fonction : Auteur
J. Kuiper
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

In the absence of a firm link between individual meteorites and their asteroidal parent bodies, asteroids are typically characterized only by their light reflection properties, and grouped accordingly into classes. On 6 October 2008, a small asteroid was discovered with a flat reflectance spectrum in the 554-995nm wavelength range, and designated 2008 TC3 (refs 4-6). It subsequently hit the Earth. Because it exploded at 37km altitude, no macroscopic fragments were expected to survive. Here we report that a dedicated search along the approach trajectory recovered 47 meteorites, fragments of a single body named Almahata Sitta, with a total mass of 3.95kg. Analysis of one of these meteorites shows it to be an achondrite, a polymict ureilite, anomalous in its class: ultra-fine-grained and porous, with large carbonaceous grains. The combined asteroid and meteorite reflectance spectra identify the asteroid as F class, now firmly linked to dark carbon-rich anomalous ureilites, a material so fragile it was not previously represented in meteorite collections.

Dates et versions

hal-03730640 , version 1 (20-07-2022)

Identifiants

Citer

Peter Jenniskens, Muawia H. Shaddad, D. Numan, S. Elsir, A. M. Kudoda, et al.. The impact and recovery of asteroid 2008 TC3. Nature, 2009, 458, pp.485-488. ⟨10.1038/nature07920⟩. ⟨hal-03730640⟩
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