This area will cover relevant news of the threat to the planet from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) including concepts and designs for mitigation. All opinions are those of the author.

20 September 2009

Workshop on Asteroid 2008 TC3 (University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan, 05-15 December 2009)



From the workshop website:

The University of Khartoum, Faculty of Sciences and Physics Department, and the SETI Institute invite planetary astronomers and meteoriticists to participate in a workshop dedicated to asteroid 2008 TC3. Asteroid 2008 TC3 was the first asteroid to be detected in space and subsequently found to impact the Earth. Fragments were recovered in the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan in the form of rare ureilite meteorites, called "Almahata Sitta".

Goal of the workshop is to discuss the results from ongoing research into the properties of asteroid 2008 TC3 when it was still in space, its nature and origin, the asteroid's impact in Earth's atmosphere, the subsequent recovery, and the analysis of the recovered meteorites. Talks on the origin of ureilites are invited, as well as discussions on how to adjust observing strategies to increase the likelyhood of future discoveries of small asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

The workshop will be held on the days of December 6 and 7, 2009. In the week following, from December 8 to 15, there will be a site visit to the area where Almahata Sitta was recovered. An effort will be made to expand the diversity of recovered materials by finding more of the fallen debris.

Link: Workshop website

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