A small asteroid — which had just been discovered earlier in the day — disintegrated over Africa on Saturday, NASA said.

The tiny space rock, roughly six feet long, entered Earth’s atmosphere at the high speed of 38,000 mph and broke apart several miles above the surface, creating a bright fireball that lit up the evening sky, the agency said.

The event was witnessed by a number of observers and was caught on webcam video.

The object surprised astronomers shortly after its discovery, when its trajectory suggested it would pass very, very close to Earth just hours later, according to EarthSky.org.

When it was spotted, astronomers realized there was a possibility of an Earth impact. However, the asteroid was determined to be very small and therefore harmless.

“This was a much smaller object than we are tasked to detect and warn about,” said Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer at NASA Headquarters. “However, this real-world event allows us to exercise our capabilities and gives some confidence our impact prediction models are adequate to respond to the potential impact of a larger object.”

The object was first given the temporary designation of ZLAF9B2, but has now been renamed as asteroid 2018 LA by the International Astronomical Union.

It was much smaller than the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013, which was an estimated 60 feet wide. That meteor broke windows in six Russian cities and caused more than 1,500 people to seek medical attention, mostly due to injuries from flying glass, EarthSky said.

These are the discovery observations of asteroid 2018 LA from the Catalina Sky Survey, taken June 2, 2018. About eight hours after these images were taken, the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphereand disintegrated in the upper atmosphere near Botswana, Africa. </s> A small asteroid discovered Saturday morning, determined to head for Earth, impacted the planet's atmosphere just a few hours later, according to NASA.

The cosmic boulder, named asteroid 2018 LA (and previously listed as ZLAF9B2), was estimated to be only about 6 feet (2 meters) across. It was first spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

"The discovery of asteroid 2018 LA is only the third time that an asteroid has been discovered to be on an impact trajectory," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), in a statement. "It is also only the second time that the impact location was predicted well ahead of the event itself."

All three asteroids burned up in the atmosphere and caused no reported damage.

NEO watchers calculated that asteroid 2018 LA would enter the atmosphere somewhere over a corridor extending from Africa across the Indian Ocean to Papua New Guinea.

The final moments of the asteroid's existence appear to have been caught Saturday evening from a webcam in South Africa in the below clip. Although it looks like the fireball impacts the ground, it is really just disappearing over the horizon. NASA says it disintegrated several miles over the surface as it lit up the sky.

"This was a much smaller object than we are tasked to detect and warn about," said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters. "However, this real-world event allows us to exercise our capabilities and gives some confidence our impact prediction models are adequate to respond to the potential impact of a larger object."

One such larger object was the asteroid that went completely undetected until it collided with the atmosphere over Russia in 2013, creating a shock wave that blew out thousands of windows in the town of Chelyabinsk, causing a number of minor injuries.

How much it's worth freaking out over these undetected or late-detected asteroids is up for debate. The smallest asteroids like 2018 LA are the hardest to spot, but also the least likely to do any damage. That said, it can never hurt to have more telescopes and eyes pointed at the sky looking for the next space rock aiming to knock on our door ... or break it down.

Solving for XX: The tech industry seeks to overcome outdated ideas about "women in tech." </s> A local farmer near Ottosdal in North West has shared CCTV footage of what appears to be a meteorite hitting the earth at 18:49 Saturday night.





According to a member of a neighbourhood watch, who shared the video with OFM News on social media, they were doing night patrol in the area of Hartbeesfontein when they received reports from Klerksdorp, approximately 30 kilometres away. People reportedly saw ‘a light’ falling from the sky and initially thought it was an aeroplane.

He told OFM News that everyone came together and started searching, but shortly thereafter received the CCTV footage from Barend Swanepoel and Wikus van Zyl from a farm near Bospoort and Gardau, an area not too far from Klerksdorp. On the video it appears to be more like a meteor that has fallen.

What could have possibly been the same meteor was lighting up the sky in China earlier Saturday evening.

According to Itv News, witnesses were stunned by a dazzling light which quickly took the form of a “flaming ball” over Yunnan Province. The Yunnan Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said it was a meteor.

Social media has also made mention of a meteorite that was discovered and given the temporary label – ZLAF9B2 – which reportedly slammed into the atmosphere over Botswana.

According to a physicist and Very-long-baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio astronomer, Marshall Eubanks, this is a rare case of discovery before impact.

OFM News last night tracked the path of meteorite ZLAF9B2, with a projected diameter of between 0.5m and 3,5m, as plotted by Bill Grey on Twitter.

It looks like ZLAF9B2 hit the atmosphere over Botswana. There are reports of a vapor trail seen there. Plot is from Bill Grey https://t.co/ylIPUgKPhY pic.twitter.com/pqxf1oACBi

— Asteroid Initiatives (@AsteroidEnergy) June 3, 2018">

It looks like ZLAF9B2 hit the atmosphere over Botswana. There are reports of a vapor trail seen there. Plot is from Bill Grey https://t.co/ylIPUgKPhY pic.twitter.com/pqxf1oACBi — Asteroid Initiatives (@AsteroidEnergy) June 3, 2018

This a developing story.

It seems now that the asteroid *did* hit the atmosphere and exploded: the very bright fireball repored over Botswana in https://t.co/EhmmN0JxoX fits the asteroid's trajectory perfectly in space and time as https://t.co/KRS0iDRd0L (View / Expand Messages / scroll down) explains.

— Daniel Fischer (@cosmos4u) June 2, 2018">

It seems now that the asteroid *did* hit the atmosphere and exploded: the very bright fireball repored over Botswana in https://t.co/EhmmN0JxoX fits the asteroid's trajectory perfectly in space and time as https://t.co/KRS0iDRd0L (View / Expand Messages / scroll down) explains. — Daniel Fischer (@cosmos4u) June 2, 2018









CCTV FOOTAGE: Barend Swanepoel and Wikus van Zyl

OFM News </s> A small asteroid discovered on Saturday morning, June 2, 2018, surprised astronomers when its trajectory suggested it would pass very, very close to Earth just hours after being detected. The object has been given the temporary designation of ZLAF9B2. There are reports of sightings of a bright meteor, as well as a video that may be related to the event, from Barend Swanepoel in South Africa. He reports the video as being:

Another witness in South Africa described the meteor as very bright, and showing a yellow color.

This space rock had an estimated size of only 10-16 feet (3 to 5 meters) in diameter. If it struck (and sometimes they do, and meteorite pieces are found), it was too small to cause serious damages. In contrast, the impressive meteor seen over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February, 2013 was an estimated 60 feet wide (20 meters). It broke windows in six Russian cities and caused more than 1,500 people to seek medical attention, mostly due to injuries from flying glass. The June 2 asteroid wasn’t big enough to do anything like that, but it was big enough to produce a spectacular, very bright meteor.

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The 60-inch (1.5-meter) telescope at Mt. Lemmon, which is part of the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, was the first to detect asteroid ZLAF9B2 on Saturday morning, according to clocks in North America. Alex Gibbs – principal engineer at the Catalina Sky Survey – posted these images of the object on his Facebook page:

According to NASA/JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), asteroid ZLAF9B2 approached Earth at 27,738 miles per hour (44,640 km per hour).

Models began suggesting that – in case of impact – the asteroid would enter Earth’s atmosphere somewhere between Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, or South Africa.

The reported observation of the color yellow in the sighted meteor is of interest because colors in a meteor provide a hint of its composition. Yellow suggest the rock contains sodium, as was also in the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor.

Small asteroids are difficult to detect. Some space rocks might be dark, and may only reflect a small amount of sunlight as they may already be somewhat close to our planet.

However, as bigger asteroids reflect more light, they are usually detected weeks or months before closest approach.

Confirmation of the event is continuing to trickle in: </s> Image copyright NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR Image caption This composite of 30 images of asteroid 2014 JO25 was generated using Nasa's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California's Mojave Desert

A large asteroid the size of the Rock of Gibraltar has passed safely by Earth.

The object, measured to be almost a kilometre wide, came within five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Known as 2014 JO25, the asteroid is the biggest such space rock to skim our world since 2004.

Astronomers say the best opportunity to view the rock will come in the dark hours of Wednesday night.

Radar imagery using Nasa's 70m (230 ft) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California reveal a peanut-shaped asteroid that rotates about once every five hours.

The asteroid passed Earth at a distance of 1.8 million km (1.1 million miles) at 13:24 BST on Wednesday, 19 April.

The next known encounter of an asteroid of about this size will occur in 2027 when the 800m-wide (half-mile-wide) asteroid 1999 AN10 will fly by at one lunar distance, about 380,000 km (236,000 miles). </s> Last Sunday, the so-called “Super Bowl asteroid” safely flew by Earth, following weeks of reports that focused on how closely it would skim Earth, and what would have happened had it smashed into our planet. While Asteroid 2018 CB wasn’t as large as the previous week’s Asteroid 2002 AJ129, it stood out for the fact that it flew by much closer on Friday, and how it was only discovered five days prior, unlike other near-Earth asteroids that had been discovered well before their close encounters.

According to CNET, Asteroid 2018 CB made its flyby at around 10:30 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, safely skimming our planet but doing so at a distance of only 39,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) from Earth. As noted by NASA Center for Near-Earth Object Studies manager Paul Chodas, the asteroid was relatively small in size, but was possibly larger than the meteor that crashed into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, and also one of the few objects that are generally expected to make such a close approach to Earth.

“Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet – maybe only once or twice a year,” said Chodas.

The aforementioned Chelyabinsk meteor was only about 50 to 60 feet (17 to 20 meters) wide, but when it exploded over the Russian city in February 2013, it created shockwaves strong enough to shatter windows in over 3,600 apartment blocks, and even knock people off their feet, The Guardian wrote. Thousands were hospitalized for injuries related to the asteroid impact, mostly due to falling debris, but also due to skin and retinal burns caused by the intense brightness of the space rock.

In contrast, Asteroid 2018 CB was believed to be substantially larger, with its width of about 50 to 130 feet (15 to 40 meters), making it possibly longer than a blue whale, as several publications noted. But Live Science added that the asteroid’s size was only a small part of what made it interesting to many observers, as astronomers were only able to spot 2018 CB on Sunday, February 4, only five days before its very close flyby.

According to Live Science, it’s not unusual either for asteroids to be spotted just a few days before they skim past Earth, as there are many near-Earth objects that literally fly under the radar and zoom past our planet without ever being detected. The publication added that asteroids are especially hard to track when compared to other space objects due to their small size. Putting things in context, Asteroid 2018 CB measures a mere fraction of Vesta’s diameter; Vesta, which is the universe’s largest known asteroid, is 329 miles (530 kilometers) wide.

At the moment, NASA is still hard at work as it gathers information on up to 90 percent of all asteroids with diameters of more than 460 feet and likely paths that would take them within about 4.65 million miles (7.48 million kilometers) of Earth. Live Science pointed out that these asteroids are all at least nine times larger than Asteroid 2018 CB, which would have made the latter object extremely difficult to spot from a distance, and only allowed astronomers to spot it as it was “basically knocking on our door.” </s> A 2,000-foot-long asteroid, almost twice the size of the Rose Bowl, will zip safely past Earth on Wednesday at a distance of about 1.1 million miles, about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon.

Although there is no possibility the asteroid, with the ungainly name of 2014 JO25, could collide with our planet, it will be a very close approach for an asteroid of this size, NASA said.

“Close is kind of a relative term,” AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Lada said. “The closest it’s going to be to the Earth is more than a million miles away.”

It's the closest this asteroid has come to Earth for at least the past 400 years and will be its closest approach for at least the next 500 years.

NASA said the approach is the closest by any known asteroid of this size since the 3.1-mile-wide asteroid Toutatis approached within about four lunar distances in September 2004. Not until 2027 will we have another shot at seeing a big rock tumble so close by, Sky and Telescope said.



 The asteroid is so massive that astronomy website Slooh.com nicknamed it after popular movie star Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock.

The flyby should also be visible with amateur telescopes, beginning in the early morning hours on Wednesday and then again that night, according to EarthSky.org. Wednesday morning, it can be spotted in the northern sky near the constellation of Draco.

Wednesday night, asteroid 2014 JO25 will pass though the constellations Canes Venatici and Coma Berenices in the eastern sky.

The asteroid was discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz. </s> Earth is set to be passed by the biggest asteroid ever recorded tomorrow and both astronomers and enthusiasts will be able to watch the whole thing.

Asteroid Florence will skim past Earth at around 1pm BST tomorrow (September 1) at a distance of 4.4 million miles (7.0 million kilometers).

That's roughly 18 times the distance to the moon and close enough to categorise it as a near-Earth asteroid .

NASA will be monitoring the asteroid as it passes and will use the occasion to test out various tracking technologies.

Using radar arrays here on the ground, the space agency reckons it can capture pictures of Florence with surface details as small as 10m (30 feet).

Meanwhile, you can watch it live thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project.

The live stream will start at 8.30pm BST this evening and monitor the asteroid on its path.

See it in the night sky

If you want to try and spot Florence in the night sky yourself then you're going to need a telescope, or at least a pair of binocular.

The space rock measures 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) across and will be very bright tonight (August 31). As well as a telescope, would-be watchers will need a good sky chart to plot its path across the sky.

"Florence shines at peak magnitude of 8.7 tonight (August 30th) and remains brighter than magnitude 10 through September 5th," wrote Bob King in astronomy site Sky and Telescope .

"That means that even with a semi-bright Moon in the sky, some of you will be able to pick it up in binoculars, and anyone with a 4-inch or larger telescope should kill it."

Is it going to hit Earth?

Although the asteroid is being labelled as "potentially hazardous", there's no chance it's going to hit us.

However, if it did, the size of it would cause mass destruction to our planet.

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs is believed to have measured six miles across. Florence measures roughly half that and so would still cause cataclysmic damage.

“Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The space agency is currently developing a plan to steer away any larger asteroids on a collision course with Earth through a deliberate impact. However, it requires the experts to be able to accurately locate and track incoming asteroids before it's too late. </s> The asteroid, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2018 YQ2, is expected to approach our home planet just after midnight. NASA’s asteroid experts at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) predict YQ2 will flyby at 12.07am GMT (UTC) on Tuesday, January 8. During this flyby, the imposing asteroid will reach its closest possible distance to the planet – a so-called “Earth Close Approach”. The asteroid is not expected to hit the Earth anytime soon but tonight’s flyby will be the first of two incredibly close encounters this year.

NASA expects Asteroid YQ2 to visit the Earth again in eight months on the evening of August 26, 2019. And the asteroid’s impressive measurements are a good enough reason for NASA’s asteroid trackers to pay close attention to the space rock. NASA’s JPL scientists estimate YQ2 measures in the range of 52.5ft to 118.1ft (16m to 36m) in diameter. Any asteroid in this size range could pack enough force to cause injury and destruction upon atmospheric entry. READ MORE: Rogue asteroids could WIPE OUT life on Earth, warns Stephen Hawking

The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, which is estimated to have measured around 65.6ft (20m), injured more than 1,000 people in Russia when it exploded over Chelyabinsk. At the upper end of YQ2’s estimate, the space rock is about more than twice as tall as the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, is six-times as tall as an average giraffe and is nine-times longer than a Volkswagen Beatle. Thankfully, even at its closest, Asteroid YQ2 will miss the Earth completely by nearly two million miles. NASA believes the space rock will reach 0.01919 astronomical units (au) from the Earth – enough to dub it a “Near-Earth Object” (NEO) but not close enough to sound the alarm bells. READ MORE: Black hole in the middle of Milky Way could grow TENFOLD

One astronomical unit is the distance from Earth to the Sun and equals about 93 million miles (149.6 million km). Asteroid YQ2 will considerably cut this distance down tonight to just 1.78 million miles (2.87 million km).

This is roughly the equivalent of 7.47 Lunar Distances (LD) or 7.47-times the distance from Earth to the Moon. And the space rock will dash through space at breakneck speeds of more than 12,000mph or 5.68km per second. As they barrel through the solar system, NEOs like Asteroid YQ2 sometimes come close enough to our home world to spark interest from NASA. READ MORE: Was Einstein WRONG? Scientists probe supermassive BLACK HOLE to disprove theory of gravity
A 2–5-metre (6 ft 7 in–16 ft 5 in) wide asteroid named 2018 LA was estimated (before impact) to have an 82% chance of having impacted Earth today, with several corroborating reports from Botswana. An OFM media report from near Klerksdorp, North West province, South Africa, describes "'a light' falling from the sky" at 18:49 (UTC+02:00) Saturday night.