The US Space Agency (NASA) revealed that an asteroid the size of a truck will pass near Earth today, at a distance from the lowest in the history of recorded approaches to our planet, reassuring that it does not pose any danger.
This asteroid, “BU 2023”, which was recently spotted by an amateur astronomer, will approach the southern tip of South America at approximately 16:27 Pacific Time Thursday (00:27 GMT Friday), according to NASA.
The asteroid will approach at a distance of 3,600 km from the Earth’s surface, much closer than several satellites orbiting the Earth.
And NASA said, in a statement yesterday, that there is no danger that the asteroid will collide with Earth.
Even if such a collision occurred, the asteroid, which has a diameter of 3.5 meters to 8.5 meters, would largely disintegrate in the Earth’s atmosphere, which may result in a few small meteorites.
The asteroid was spotted, on Saturday, by an observatory in Crimea by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, who had previously spotted an interstellar comet in 2019.
Then dozens more observations were made from observatories around the world.
The US space agency said that NASA’s impact risk assessment system quickly concluded that the asteroid would not hit Earth.
“Despite the very small number of observations, the system was able to predict that the asteroid would pass very close to Earth,” said NASA researcher David Farnocchia, who helped develop the system.
He added, “In fact, this is one of the closest times an object has ever come close to Earth.”
The asteroid will come very close, as its path around the sun will change dramatically.
NASA said that the asteroid previously took 359 days to complete its orbit around the sun, but after this great approach to Earth, it will take 425 days to complete its orbit.