Support for LAist comes from
We Explain L.A.
Stay Connected

Share This

News

A Recently Discovered Asteroid Had 'a Very Close Encounter' With Earth

An illustration shows several intersecting grey and red lines, and a green circle. They are marked "earth" "GEO" "2023 BU" and "moon"
Asteroid 2023 BU will streak about 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface on Thursday night. Its path is seen here in an image from NASA's Scout impact hazard assessment system. The moon's path is in gray.
NASA/JPL-Caltech)
We need to hear from you.
Today, put a dollar value on the trustworthy reporting you rely on all year long. The local news you read here every day is crafted for you, but right now, we need your help to keep it going. In these uncertain times, your support is even more important. We can't hold those in power accountable and uplift voices from the community without your partnership. Thank you.

There was no reason to panic — an asteroid shot past our planet harmlessly Thursday night, NASA says. The space agency says the object — the size of a large moving truck — made one of the closest approaches to Earth ever when it zipped over the Southern Hemisphere.

NASA described it as "a very close encounter with our planet."

The asteroid, dubbed 2023 BU, was only 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface when it passed over South America's southern edge at 7:27 p.m. ET, NASA says.

For comparison, that's a little shorter than a straight-line trip from New York City to Las Vegas, which is about 2,230 miles through the air.

Support for LAist comes from

"In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded," said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, as the agency announced the close passage.

Even if it did hit our planet, the small asteroid's main effect would be visual, as it would become a fireball in our atmosphere, with some debris likely falling as small meteorites.

A short notice before arrival

The asteroid arrived on short notice: 2023 BU was just discovered on Saturday by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who has previously been credited with discovering a number of comets and asteroids, including the first confirmed interstellar comet.

NASA's Scout system, which assesses potential hazards, quickly determined that 2023 BU wouldn't hit Earth but "make an extraordinarily close approach," said Farnocchia, who developed the system.

News of the visit comes at a time when NASA has put new emphasis on planetary defense, detecting and analyzing objects that could pose an impact hazard. Last year, it even tested a just-in-case plan to ram an asteroid, if it someday becomes necessary to redirect an object away from Earth.

2023 BU is much smaller than many other close-passing asteroids that have made headlines in recent years, one of which was "the size of two Rose Bowl stadiums." But this asteroid is also coming much closer to our planet: some of those other objects stayed tens or hundreds of thousands of miles away.

The asteroid's visit brought it well within the cloud of geosynchronous satellites around Earth, getting around 10 times closer to the planet's surface than those objects, which maintain a high orbit.

Want More Space Talk? Check Out Our Event With JPL

Support for LAist comes from
What questions do you have about Southern California?
  • Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org.

Most Read