This orbital diagram from CNEOS’s shut method viewer exhibits 2023 BU’s trajectory – in crimson – throughout its shut method with Earth on Jan. 26, 2023. The asteroid will go about 10 instances nearer to Earth than the orbit of geosynchronous satellites, proven in inexperienced line. Credit: NASA
Asteroid 2023 BU is concerning the measurement of a field truck and is predicted to make one of many closest approaches by a near-Earth object ever recorded.
On Thursday, Jan. 26, a small near-Earth asteroid may have a really shut encounter with our planet. Designated 2023 BU, the asteroid will zoom over the southern tip of South America at about 4:27 p.m. PST (7:27 p.m. EST) solely 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) above the planet’s floor and effectively inside the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.
There is not any threat of the asteroid impacting Earth. But even when it did, this small asteroid—estimated to be 11.5 to twenty-eight toes (3.5 to eight.5 meters) throughout—would flip right into a fireball and largely disintegrate harmlessly within the environment, with a few of the greater particles doubtlessly falling as small meteorites.
The asteroid was found by novice astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, discoverer of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, from his MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday, Jan. 21. Additional observations had been reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC)—the internationally acknowledged clearinghouse for the place measurements of small celestial our bodies—and the info was then routinely posted to the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page. After ample observations had been collected, the MPC introduced the invention. Within three days, various observatories around the globe had made dozens of observations, serving to astronomers higher refine 2023 BU’s orbit.
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2023-01-25 16:48:16 NASA system predicts small asteroid to go shut by Earth this week
Link from phys.org