Astronomers have discovered an asteroid that is about the size of a double-decker bus. It will fly by the Earth at a very close distance. According to NASA, this is the closest approach to an asteroid ever recorded.
An asteroid will pass by the Earth during the night from Thursday to Friday. Astronomers discovered it on Saturday and it is thought to be roughly 3.5 by 8.5 meters in size. It can therefore be compared in size to a double-decker bus.
As the website says The Mirror, the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 7:27 PM ET on Thursday. In the Czech Republic, this time corresponds to Friday 1:27 AM. According to NASA will be the closest approach of an asteroid to Earth ever recorded.
A space object named as 2023 BU will approach the tip of South America. It will fly around the Earth from a distance of 3,600 kilometers. This is a distance 10 times lower than the height at which geostationary satellites fly, i.e. those that move at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation around its own axis.
At the same time, NASA warns that there is no danger of an asteroid colliding with Earth. Even if the body flew directly to our planet, according to experts, it is so small that most of it would burn up when entering the atmosphere, and only remnants in the form of small meteorites would fall on Earth.
An asteroid orbits the Sun and before it approaches Earth, its path will be approximately circular. However, Earth’s gravity will deflect it, changing its flight trajectory. Originally, it took 359 days to orbit the Sun. However, after the Earth flyby and deflection, the orbit time increases to 425 days.
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