[8][9][10] On 2 June 2018, at roughly 08:22 UTC (01:22 local time), the Mount Lemmon Survey picked up an 18th-magnitude asteroid moving quickly against the background stars.

Several hours later, at 16:44 UTC, a report arrived from southern Botswana to the American Meteor Society that an exceptionally bright fireball had been spotted.

For example, on 24 May 2018, the asteroid was still 0.069 AU (10,300,000 km; 6,400,000 mi) from Earth and only had an apparent magnitude of 25.5, much dimmer than any major modern surveys can detect using rapid-fire 30 second snapshots meant to cover as much of the sky as possible.

[12] Scientists promptly looked for a meteorite strewn field, hoping to recover fragments of the asteroid before they had a chance to weather too much.

Assuming a similar fraction of 2018 LA survived as of 2008 TC3, several kilograms in total were expected to have reached the ground and be recoverable, if estimates of 40% as massive as 2008 TC3 were correct.

They joined a search effort organized by Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe of the Botswana Geoscience Institute and Alexander Proyer of BIUST, which resulted in the first meteorite found on June 23, now called Motopi Pan after a nearby watering hole.