An asteroid the size of a box truck is about to make one of the closest passes of planet Earth ever recorded.
An asteroid the size of a box truck is about to make one of the closest passes of planet Earth ever recorded.
The small near-Earth asteroid, called 2023 BU, will zip over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. ET Thursday about 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. This distance is well within the orbit of global satellites.
There is no risk of the asteroid striking Earth, according to NASA.
If the space rock, which is estimated to be 11.5 to 28 feet (3.5 to 8.5 meters) across, did head for Earth, it would transform into a fireball once it entered the atmosphere and disintegrate. Any remaining debris would fall to the ground as small meteorites, according to the space agency.
Amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov spotted the asteroid from the MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday. Borisov previously discovered the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.
