READ ABOUT AN ASTEROID THAT LANDED ON EARTH AFTER A 22 MILLION YEAR VOYAGE

The asteroid was discovered to be on an impact trajectory with Earth on June 2, 2018, and eight hours after it was detected, it appeared over South Africa with a flash.

READ ABOUT AN ASTEROID THAT LANDED ON EARTH AFTER A 22 MILLION YEAR VOYAGE
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The asteroid, known as 2018 LA, appeared like a fireball in the skies over Botswana on June 2, 2018, before breaking apart and landing in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. For the first time, scientists have been able to precisely map the flight path of an asteroid that landed on Earth and trace it back to its point of origin. The boulder-size fragment's journey to our planet began 22 million years ago, according to new research.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I came upon a little object that appeared to be moving across images taken by SkyMapper," said Christopher Onken, study coauthor and ANU SkyMapper project scientist and astronomer, in a statement. These last images before the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere were SkyMapper's biggest contribution. They helped to pinpoint both the search area for the meteorite fragments on Earth and the meteor's origin in space."

The meteorite is named 'Motopi Pan' after a local watering hole," said Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe, study coauthor and geoscientist at the Botswana Geoscience Institute, in a statement. "This meteorite is a national treasure of Botswana." Understanding the connections between meteorite fragments and the asteroids they came from is tricky. While scientists understand the current locations and sizes of about 1 million asteroids today, they don't know their compositions. Meanwhile, they understand what meteorites are made of, but they don't know where most of them came from before they crashed into Earth.

Credit:CNN


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