[ad_1]
Last month, a fireball illuminated the sky over Botswana just hours after scientists first spotted the rock that was heading for the Earth. Researchers from Botswana, South Africa, Finland and the United States have discovered pieces of meteorite.
Scientists detected the six-foot-wide asteroid, called 2018 LA, on June 2 using the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. He hit the Earth eight hours later. The researchers found the meteorite fragments in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve on June 23, according to a publication of the University of Helsinki.
The meteorite itself is of interest to scientists, who want to know what these rocks are made of in order to better understand our solar system. Knowing the composition of an asteroid could one day be important for those who are interested in the exploitation of asteroids or who deviate a potentially dangerous rock for the Earth.
How did a space rock hit the Earth with so little warning? The reason is that NASA does not follow such small asteroids. In 2005 Congress instructed NASA to detect and catalog 90% of near-Earth objects over 140 meters. The space agency has not quite fulfilled this mission – a recent report mentions that it's only a third of the way. Another report by Nathan Myhrvold, an author of polymaths / physicists, discovered that many recordings of asteroids captured by NASA's Near Earth Object telescope could be wrong. to reach the Earth. Just recently, a small meteorite exploded in Michigan. But we are far from being ready for something much bigger to hit, especially when it hits a populated area.
[EurekAlert via Space.com]
Source link
