Regions-follow-ups
Today, Thursday, the Earth will witness the passage of a newly discovered asteroid called 2023 BU from an altitude of only 3,500 km above South America within the belt of geosynchronous satellites.
It does not hit the ground
The Astronomical Society in Jeddah stated that the phenomenon occurs at 12:17 after midnight Mecca time (09:17 pm GMT), and it is moving at a speed of 9.3 kilometers per second, but there is no danger of a collision.
See through hardware
Engineer Majed Abu Zahra, head of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah, said that the asteroid 2023 BU has a diameter of 5 meters, which means that it is very small according to the standards of standard asteroids, and it is not visible to the naked eye when it approaches, as its apparent luminosity will reach about (+17.7).
He added, “If we assume that it is on a collision course, it will become a fireball during its crash in the upper atmosphere of the Earth, which is repeated several times a year for space rocks of this size.”
Millions of asteroids pass by
By some estimates, there are hundreds of millions of small asteroids the size of BU 2023, but they are extremely difficult to detect until they come very close to Earth, and in all, the vast majority of them pass safely at much greater distances – usually much further than the Moon.
It is considered an achievement to find these small nearby asteroids because they pass quickly and there is usually a short window of a few days before or after a close approach when that small asteroid is close enough to Earth to be bright enough but not so close that it moves too quickly through the sky to not It can be detected with a telescope.
NEO Tracker
Take advantage of such opportunities to learn more about asteroids, such as the nature of their formation, as these bodies are like a time machine from the remnants of the formation of our solar system, keeping many of the secrets of that era and could tell us more about the origin of our planet.
In addition, observing the movement of the asteroid is an excellent opportunity to test the international capabilities to detect and track near-Earth objects and evaluate our ability to respond together to any real threat to any asteroid in the future.
Based on the latest high-precision orbit calculations, it has been confirmed that it will not collide with Earth in the near future.