NASA Systems, an asteroid the size of a box truck will pass very close to the Earth this week. The asteroid, known as Asteroid 2023, will likely pass over South America. According to NASA, the asteroid will be the closest in recorded history when it passes Earth during its path, being only 2,200 miles over the planet’s surface.
The small asteroid, which is believed to be 11.5 to 28 feet (3.5 to 8.5 metres) across, would disintegrate harmlessly in the atmosphere, with some of the larger debris perhaps falling as small meteorites, the space agency said. However, there is little risk of the asteroid impacting Earth, and even if it did, the agency added.
Gennadiy Borisov, an amateur astronomer, discovered the asteroid on Saturday and alerted the Minor Planet Center (MPC).
The data from MPC was then analysed and the near miss was predicted using NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system.
According to Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL who created Scout, “Scout rapidly ruled out 2023 BU as an impactor, but despite the extremely few observations, it was nevertheless able to anticipate that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close contact with Earth.”
In actuality, he continued, “this is one of the recorded closest contacts by a known near-Earth object.”
Despite the fact that an asteroid is not dangerous to Earth, NASA has been concentrating on constructing planetary defences against them.
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