Over South Africa exploded asteroid
Astronomers June 2, discovered-foot asteroid, and after 19 hours it exploded in the sky over Africa. This is the third case in history when scientists were able to register the near-earth object shortly before it fell to our planet, according to the website of the jet propulsion Laboratory of NASA.
Every day close to the Ground passes one or more asteroids of different sizes — the diameter of many of them does not exceed 100 meters. The risk of serious collisions is rather small: it is estimated that asteroids with a size of 1 meter fall on our planet each year, with a size of 10 meters — once in a hundred years, 50-100 meters — once in a period from a few hundred to thousands of years, and 5-10 kilometers — every 20-200 million years. Still, the researchers were able to predict the fall of the near-earth asteroid to Earth only twice — in October 2008, when Sudan over the exploded object, 2008 TC3, and in July 2014, when the asteroid 2014 AA has flown over the Atlantic ocean.
In the night of Saturday 2 June, the researchers were able to register small and dim asteroid in 2018 LA, which, as it turned out, was flying towards the Ground. Its size, according to astronomers, was only 2 meters, so he didn’t pose a danger to inhabitants of the planet. The object was seen on a system of automated telescopes the Catalina Sky Survey when he was still beyond the orbit of the moon. Despite the small amount of data, scientists have identified the possible place of falling of celestial bodies through a system of Scout. The main option was South Africa.
About 8 PM Moscow time 2018 LA entered the atmosphere at a speed of 17 kilometers per second. He broke into pieces before reaching Earth’s surface a few kilometers. Infrasound data (having a frequency lower than the perceived by the human ear), obtained by the monitoring system Treaty Organization comprehensive nuclear test showed that the explosion took place above Botswana. Local residents captured the event on camera:
In 2013, over the Ural mountains in Chelyabinsk exploded meteorite with a diameter of almost 20 meters. Later physicists have modeled the decay in order to more accurately predict how they will scatter the debris of other asteroids in the future.
Christina Ulasovich