A "fresh" asteroid fragment discovered in Botswana less than a month after it fell out of the sky

Twenty days after the asteroid 2018 LA crashed in Botswana, the first meteorite from the tiny space rock was recovered from the Kalahari Central Reserve

On June 2, a tiny asteroid penetrated in the spotted terrestrial atmosphere, exploding over Botswana in South Africa. As reported Inquisitr the entry of the asteroid into our atmosphere as a meteorite fireball has been witnessed by a number of people – the American Meteor Society currently lists 27 reports by witnesses who saw or heard the event. 19659003] Known as the LA of 2018, the asteroid was detected in space only eight hours before it breaks in our atmosphere. Picked up by the NASA sponsored Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, it is the third asteroid ever identified on a collision course with Earth and spotted before impact.

Operated by the University of Arizona, the Catalina Sky Survey As part of NASA's Planetary Defense mission, in search of asteroids that could approach the Earth .

If you think that all the commotion around the 2018 LA asteroid is over, think again. The 6-foot-wide space rock is back in the spotlight, as researchers have reported locating the very first fragment of the asteroid-turned meteor that crashed last month in Botswana.

The meteorite fragment was recovered from the Kalahari Central Game Reserve, reports Science Daily attributing the discovery to an international group of scientists from Botswana, Finland and the United States.

Nicknamed "The Meteorite of Botswana", the asteroid fragment was found by Lesedi Seitshiro, a geoscientist at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST). After traversing the reserve for five days, the geologist eventually stumbled on the meteorite on June 23, less than a month after the 2018 asteroid fell out of space.

First fragment of the recent asteroid impactor 2018 LA recovered:
https://t.co/ldEWB4asno

– Dr. Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) 6 July 2018

" This is the third time in history that an asteroid coming into contact with the Earth has been detected early and only the second time that fragments have been recovered, "says the University's Helsinki Finland, which is now involved in a follow-up search mission to search for more pieces of the fallen asteroid.

"The importance of the discovery is two -fold: It has tremendous scientific value and makes it possible to better calibrate the so-called" Earth Defense "against asteroids."

If you wonder how Seitshiro and the other BIUST scientists, the Botswana Geoscience Institute (BGI), and the Okavan Go Research Institute of the University of Botswana knows where to look for the asteroid crashed , Science Daily notes that the landing site was calculated by another group of research

Fragment of impacting #asteroid recovered in Botswana. time in the story that an asteroid coming into contact with the Earth was detected early and only the second time that fragments are recovered! https://t.co/8Wgz3X59PG pic.twitter. com / PsgMwS3OdE

– AlphaGalileo (@alphagalileo) July 6, 2018 [19659014] Led by the SETI Institute in California expert Peter Jenniskens (who also participated in the meteorite search), Esko Lyytinen and Jarmo Moilanen of the Finnish Fireball Network, the team located the estimated area where meteorites could be found after the scattered fragments were washed away by the wind following the explosion of the asteroid.

"The Department of Wildlife and National Parks granted access [to the reserve] and deployed rangers for protection and participation in research," notes the Finnish University

. The 2018 LA asteroid that may appear in the future, will be preserved at the National Museum of Botswana and studied by a group of researchers coordinated by the BGI.