Asteroid 2023 BU about to pass Earth in one of closest ever encounters - The Guardian

An asteroid the size of a transportation motortruck volition walk Earth successful 1 of the closest specified encounters ever recorded – coming wrong a tenth of the region of astir connection satellites’ orbit.

Nasa said the recently discovered asteroid would walk 2,200 miles (3,600km) supra the confederate extremity of South America astatine 7.27pm US eastbound clip connected Thursday (12.27am GMT connected Friday).

Nasa said it would beryllium a adjacent miss with nary accidental of hitting Earth. Even if it came a batch closer, scientists said astir of it would pain up successful the atmosphere, with bigger pieces perchance falling arsenic meteorites.

Nasa’s interaction hazard appraisal system, called Scout, rapidly ruled retired a strike, said its developer, Davide Farnocchia, an technologist astatine the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory successful Pasadena, California.

“But contempt the precise fewer observations, it was nevertheless capable to foretell that the asteroid would marque an extraordinarily adjacent attack with Earth,” Farnocchia said. “In fact, this is 1 of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth entity ever recorded.”

Discovered connected Saturday, the asteroid known arsenic 2023 BU is believed to beryllium betwixt 11ft (3.5m) and 28ft (8.5m) across.

It was archetypal spotted by the aforesaid amateur astronomer successful Crimea, Gennady Borisov, who discovered an interstellar comet successful 2019. Within a fewer days, dozens of observations were made by astronomers astir the world, allowing them to refine the asteroid’s path.

That way volition beryllium altered by drastically by Earth’s gravity arsenic it passes. Instead of circling the prima each 359 days, it volition determination into an oval orbit lasting 425 days, according to Nasa.

With Associated Press