Mapping a meteoroid’s long journey from Vesta to Earth Motopi Pan left the asteroid 22 million years ago, and now the journey’s been traced. 22 million years ago, something smashed into the big, bright Vesta asteroid, ejecting a meteoroid into space. Scientists have mapped the long journey that meteroid – now a meteorite known as Motopi Pan – took: all the way from Vesta, which orbits the sun, to the Kalahari desert. A chunk of rock blasted into space 160 million kilometres away was captured by CCTV as the fireball crashed to Earth. It’s the first time such a voyage has been mapped.