2014 AA impact site identified?

Carl Hergenrother,

Sky and Telescope magazine is reporting that Peter Brown (University of Western Ontario) has made a preliminary identification of the impact site of 2014 AA, the New Year’s Earth impacting asteroid. Or more exactly, Dr. Brown has found the point where 2014 AA disintegrated in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Brown and his group used data from infrasound arrays to detect the ‘noise’ of the explosion. The location of the fireball was triangulated by measuring the time of arrival of the infrasound signal at a number of infrasound arrays around the world. This technique has been used to pinpoint the location of other large fireball events as well as the detonation of nuclear weapons. As reported by S&T, the preliminary location is at 40° west, 12° north or about 1,900 miles (3,000 km) east of Caracas, Venezuela.

The overlap of the white curves, from three marginal infrasound detections, shows where the small asteroid 2014 AA likely hit. However, this preliminary plot does not take winds into account, which might shift the true impact point somewhat further east.
The overlap of the white curves, from three marginal infrasound detections, shows where the small asteroid 2014 AA likely hit. However, this preliminary plot does not take winds into account, which might shift the true impact point somewhat further east.

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The discovery observations have also been posted at the websites of the NASA JPL NEO Project Office and the Catalina Sky Survey.

This sequence of discovery images of Asteroid 2014 AA was taken between 0618 and 0646 UT (between 1:18 and 1:46 am EST) January 1, 2014. The slight "streaking" of the asteroid in the image is due to its rapid motion across the background of stars as it approached the Earth. The brightness of the asteroid is between 18.8 and 19.1 Mv in the images. Image credit: Catalina Sky Survey, Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona
This sequence of discovery images of Asteroid 2014 AA was taken between 0618 and 0646 UT (between 1:18 and 1:46 am EST) January 1, 2014. The slight “streaking” of the asteroid in the image is due to its rapid motion across the background of stars as it approached the Earth. The brightness of the asteroid is between 18.8 and 19.1 Mv in the images. Image credit: Catalina Sky Survey, Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona

Published by Carl Hergenrother

I am a professional astronomer specializing in the study of comets, asteroids and meteors. This blog will focus on my professional and amateur work in this field.