Asteroid coming exceedingly close to Earth, but will miss - The Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid the size of a transportation motortruck volition whip past Earth connected Thursday night, 1 of the closest specified encounters ever recorded.

NASA insists it volition beryllium a adjacent miss with nary accidental of the asteroid hitting Earth.

NASA said Wednesday that this recently discovered asteroid volition zoom 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) supra the confederate extremity of South America. That’s 10 times person than the bevy of connection satellites circling overhead.

The closest attack volition hap astatine 7:27 p.m. EST (9:27 p.m. local.)

Even if the abstraction stone came a batch closer, scientists said astir of it would pain up successful the atmosphere, with immoderate of the 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 successful a statement. “In fact, this is 1 of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth entity ever recorded.”

Discovered Saturday, the asteroid known arsenic 2023 BU is believed to beryllium betwixt 11 feet (3.5 meters) and 28 feet (8.5 meters) feet 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 orbit.

The asteroid’s way drastically volition beryllium altered by Earth’s gravity erstwhile it zips by. Instead of circling the prima each 359 days, it volition determination into an oval orbit lasting 425 days, according to NASA.

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