An asteroid the size of a truck will pass “extraordinarily close” to Earth in the early hours of Thursday to Friday, in one of the most imminent encounters ever recorded, the US space agency (NASA) said Wednesday.
NASA assured, however, that this will be a “near miss”, and that there is no chance of the asteroid hitting the planet.
This newly discovered asteroid will rise 3,600 kilometers above the southern tip of South America, that is, ten times closer than the sets of circulating communications satellites visible in the sky, the space agency also highlighted.
Even if the space rock came much closer to Earth, the scientists explained that most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, with some of the largest pieces probably falling as meteorites.
NASA’s impact risk assessment system, Scout, quickly ruled out an impact, lead developer Davide Farnocchia said.
“But, despite the few observations, he was able to predict that the asteroid will come extraordinarily close to Earth,” Farnocchia was quoted as saying in a statement.
“In fact, this is one of the closest approaches ever recorded of an object approaching Earth,” he added.
Discovered on Saturday, the asteroid known as 2023 BU is believed to be between 3.5 and 8.5 meters in diameter. It was first discovered by the same amateur astronomer in Crimea, Gennady Borisov, who discovered an interstellar comet in 2019.
In a few days, astronomers from all over the world made dozens of observations that made it possible to determine the orbit of the asteroid.
The asteroid’s trajectory will be drastically altered by Earth’s gravity once it passes, and instead of completing one orbit around the sun every 359 days, it will move in an oval orbit that will last 425 days, according to NASA.
Source: TSF
