Discovered, seen and found again
The last couple of months a very rare occurrence has played out for only the second time in human history. The first as recently a 2008.
On the second July a near-earth asteroid was discovered, tracked and found to be likely to make impact with earth as little as 8 hours after its discovery. The predictions were accurate and it entered the atmosphere and exploded violently at 27 km above the earth. Mostly CCTV cameras in Southern Africa captured the spectacular event.
What has made it so unique is not only was it discovered and tracked before entering the atmosphere but bits of it have now been recovered in Botswana. With such a massive explosion (estimated 1 kiloton) at such a height the resultant fine material was swept by high altitude winds so it was quite the detective hunt to figure out where the debris would most likely land and an even more arduous task to find some of it.
After lots of data gathering, calculations, obtaining permission etc. and 5 days in the African bush the first fragment was found.
This is great for scientists because now they have fresh material from outer space and a very good idea of where it came from, by working its trajectory and speed back into the far reaches of our solar system. Good fresh material like this has also been exposed to less weathering and provides great insights into the early solar system.
Our planet has already ground up, melted and recycled many times over material from the earths formation. It is from these time capsules from the asteroid belt that we can get well preserved snippets of what the early solar system and planets were like due to asteroids being from unsuccessfully formed proto-planets and moons. Material that coalesced in the early solar system but never got into clusters large enough to form a planet.
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How cool would that be to find some unknown metal or ore in that fragment?
And then to have it mounted in your lounge for the story you could tell about it LOL
Actually, watching the video, I didn't expect the surrounding area to be so 'untouched'
Omg that footage terrified me
basically I am very fond the science of astronomy, but there are some things have not the same as the science of my religion that I have learned, and also unacceptable to my common sense, so therefore I stop to think further about it.
It scared me!
Haha lol! These might be aliens throwing rocks at us ;)
OH wow, I thought the rock would look very boring, but it's actually quite beautiful!
@gavvet first fragments is looking nice . your hard work pays you to find it out. heheh
That impact is powerful! And how much are that fragments scattered across the area?
it was totally surprise after watching the video, that these things exist : )
video is teal but i think the stone is not real because that much of blast can destroy surrounding. but it was clear and not even burn grass also