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A team of experts located a fragment of the 2018 LA asteroid in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. The asteroid fell from space on June 2, 2018 and the team found this fragment three weeks later on June 23.
Source: Peter Jenniskens
Meteorite hunters recovered a fragment of a small asteroid that fell to Earth in June. 2, burning in the sky over Botswana only hours after its detection in space.
Now known as LA 2018, the asteroid was broken into several pieces after slamming into the Earth 's atmosphere. star "flamed across the sky.Once it hit the atmosphere, the asteroid exploded and became what is called a" fireball "meteor, creating a lightning bolt of light that crossed the sky
After observers from the sky and several security cameras, meteorite experts began searching for meteorites, or pieces that survived the dive and found themselves on the ground. [Asteroid Threat: Potentially Dangerous Space Rocks in Pictures]
The first piece was found five days later by a group of geoscientists from local universities and research institutes in Botswana, followed by international researchers from the United States, Finland and Japan. 39, South Africa joined the research and helped recover a second part of the asteroid in the Central Kalahari Reserve in Botswana.
Peter Jenniskens, astronomer and meteorologist at the Ames Research Center of the NASA View, California, USA t experts from the Finnish Fireball Network helped to narrow the search area by collecting footage from surveillance cameras in the neighboring cities of Rakops and Maun in Botswana. "After the disturbance, the asteroid fragments were blown by the wind," said officials from the University of Helsinki in a statement, while studying video footage of the fireball. , the researchers could "get better constraints on the position and altitude of the explosion."
These images show the discovery of the 2018 LA asteroid by the Catalina Sky Survey on June 2 2018. The asteroid hit Earth 8 hours after taking these images, burning in the upper Earth's atmosphere over Botswana, Africa.
Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / CSS-Univ of Arizona
The asteroid 2018 LA was de tected for the first time 8 hours before it hits the Earth by astronomers with the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona. They determined that the asteroid measured about 6 feet (2 meters).
"It was a much smaller object than what we are charged with detecting and warning," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's global defense officer. "However, this real-world event allows us to exercise our capabilities and gives some confidence that our impact prediction models are adequate to address the potential impact of a more object." great. "
Members of the research team who found a meteorite fragment of the 2018 point asteroid LA at the fallen space rock
Credit: Peter Jenniskens
to continue to search for parts Additional 2018 LAs that have reached the surface of the Earth, officials from the University of Helsinki said. But they will not be able to bring the meteorites home. Because meteorites are protected by Botswana law, they will be transported to the National Museum of Botswana in Gaborone, the national capital, where scientists will continue to study the samples.
Email Hanneke Weitering at [email protected] or follow her @hannekescience . Follow us on @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+ . Original article on Space.com .
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