An asteroid the size of a truck will pass Earth. It will be one of the closest encounters ever recorded – coming close to more than a tenth of the orbit of most communications satellites.
NASA announced that the newly discovered asteroid will pass 3,600 km above the southern tip of South America on Thursday at 7:27 PM EDT. Watchman.
According to the space agency, there is no danger of it colliding with Earth. Even if it gets much closer, most of it will burn up in the atmosphere, and larger pieces can fall off like meteorites.
Image: NASA
The asteroid discovered on Saturday, known as 2023 BU, could be between 3.5 and 8.5 meters in diameter.
The object was spotted by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov who discovered an interstellar comet in 2019. Within a few days, astronomers around the world made dozens of observations, so they could determine the asteroid’s trajectory.
This trajectory will be drastically altered by Earth’s gravity as it passes. Instead of orbiting the sun every 359 days, NASA says it will enter an elliptical orbit that will last 425 days.
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