For the first time ever, scientists have managed to trace a 22 million years long journey of an asteroid called 2018 LA. It’s the same space rock that burst over Botswana, showering meteorites across the Kalahari desert on June 2, 2018.
Scientists create history
The research can be found in the Meteoritics and Planetary Science journal. The study was led by the NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute in the US.
This marks as the first time astronomers have successfully recreated a path of an asteroid from its place of origin to the Earth, reports Guardian. The astronomers took help from the images of the asteroid 2018 LA that were taken using three telescopes installed far apart on the surface of the Earth. This allowed them to reconstruct the asteroid’s trajectory and determine its origin.
Traced back to another asteroid
The study also led the team to Vesta, a 300-mile wide asteroid that can be occasionally seen without a telescope. As per the scientists, asteroid 2018 LA commenced its journey from Vesta and entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 37,000mph in June 2018.
Moreover, the report suggests that mineralogical analyses of the fragments hint that the asteroid 2018 LA was buried deep in Vesta’s surface.
“We wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for the tip-off by the American discoverers, and it hits close to home,” said Christian Wolf of the Australian National University. “Granted, it’s the Kalahari and I have never been there, but when your day job involves orienteering along a chain of black holes with an average step size of 1bn light years between the waypoints, the Kalahari feels awfully close to your keyboard,” he added.
To prevent asteroid strikes in the future, NASA already has a defense system that aims to deflect the trajectory of a space rock hurtling towards the Earth at high speed. Now, China is also gearing up to develop a defense system to prevent asteroid strikes.
