On Saturday, June 23, 2018, a team of experts from Botswana, South Africa, Finland and the United States found a new meteorite in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana. This meteorite is one of the fragments of the asteroid 2018 LA, which collided with our planet on June 2, 2018 and turned into a meteor fireball flashed over Botswana a few seconds after the space stone entered the atmosphere. Witnesses of this event were a large number of residents of Botswana and neighboring countries, while the flare meteor was recorded with the help of a large number of different surveillance cameras.
The asteroid 2018 LA was discovered 8 hours before it touched the Earth. It was opened with the help of a survey of the sky Catalina Sky Survey. This case was the third in history when an asteroid moving in the course of a collision with the Earth was detected in advance, and only the second case, when fragments of such an asteroid were found. After the destruction of the asteroid, its fragments under the action of wind were scattered over a large area, and the researchers were able to calculate the boundaries of the scattering zone of the fragments by calculation.
The first meteorite was discovered after 5 days of searches by a team of geologists from the Botswana International University of Science and Technology and other universities in the country.
Detection of the fragments of this asteroid is of great importance not only from the point of view of science, but also for the calibration of detectors of the Earth’s protection systems from asteroids.
