Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 1:58 am
This Is Totally How Movies Begin
Doesn't this sound like it's straight from the keyboard of some action sci-fi movie writer? Well it's not. It's real.
2008 TC3 was a meteoroid two to five meters in diameter that impacted Earth on October 7, 2008 at 02:46 UTC. It was discovered by an observer at the Catalina Sky Survey 1.5 meter telescope at Mount Lemmon north of Tucson, Arizona about a day before the impact. The meteoroid is confirmed to have entered Earth's atmosphere above northern Sudan at a velocity of 12.8 kilometers per second. Estimated trajectory has the object coming out of the western sky at an azimuth of 281 degrees, and an altitude angle of 19 degrees to the local horizon. It exploded tens of kilometers in the air with an energy of around one kiloton, equal to the power of a low-level nuclear bomb. Very few people inhabit the remote area of the Nubian Desert where the impact took place, but a short flash was reported to be seen by the pilots of a KLM airliner flying about 750 nautical miles (ca. 1,400 km) southwest of the explosion.
Some theories on what this really is:
A) A new Transformer, a Decepticon who will take on the form of the first animal he encounters -- a camel. Also, the Camel-epticon can transform into a Dromedary-obot.
B) A super-powered hero from another planet. He does not understand humanity, but is here to save us, as well as learn the phrases “I gotta hit that,” “bro-mance” and “don't hate the player, hate the game.” Tragically, he does not learn “What up, yo?” or “That's gonna leave a mark” until it is too late.
C) The first of a series of meteors that will reign hellfire upon the earth, but are just the precursor to the mother of all meteors, who is voiced by Eddie Murphy and full of mini-Murphies in an assortment of fat suits. (Note: The meteor can fart.)
D) A time-traveler from the future, here to warn us about the dangers of deregulating the bank system. He has arrived too late, so he goes out and finds the remaining whales and gets them drunk.
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