A very small asteroid on a collision course with Earth crashed into our planet's atmosphere on June 2, disintegrating over South Africa.
According to NASA, the space rock was estimated to be just 6 feet (2 meters) wide and broke apart several miles above the planet's surface, in the upper atmosphere near Botswana.
Hurtling toward us at the dizzying speed of 10 miles per second (38,000 mph, or 17 kilometers per second), the asteroid penetrated Earth's atmosphere at about 16:44 UTC (9:44 a.m. PDT, 12:44 p.m. EDT, 6:44 p.m. local Botswana time), turning into a bright ball of fire that lit up the African sky.
NASA revealed that the boulder-sized asteroid was first detected a mere eight hours before impact by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Temporarily dubbed ZLAF9B2, the 6-foot-wide asteroid was renamed 2018 LA by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
The asteroid-turned-meteor was seen streaking down across the African sky by a number of people, who witnessed 2018 LA approach Earth in a ball of fire from eight different cities, show records from the American Meteor Society.
The video below, posted on YouTube by Barend Swanepoel, shows footage of the asteroid coming down between Ottosdal and Hartebeesfontein in South Africa.
