It didn’t go far! Thursday, a small asteroid the size of a truck, passed us, without doing any damage, indicated the Nasa. On the other hand, give the scenario hollywood, no mission to blow it up or deflect it from its path with missiles was necessary. The asteroid, named 2023 BU, passed at most of its course 3,600 kilometers from the surface of the Terremuch closer than many satellites geostationary orbiting around the planet.
The space object was first spotted on Saturday from an observatory in Crimeaby amateur astronomer by the name of Guennadi Borissov, also the discoverer of the interstellar comet Borissov in 2019. Dozens of observations were then made by observatories around the world, confirming the arrival of 2023 BU.
The risk of collision removed very quickly
NASA’s impact hazard assessment system, Scout, quickly ruled out a collision with Earth. “Despite the very few sightings, he was still able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach to Earth,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which developed Scout.
This is “one of the closest approaches by an NEO [un astéroïde ou une comète dont l’orbite croise celle de la Terre, N.D.L.R.] never recorded”, adds the scientist.
If the calculations had been wrong, however, humanity would likely have been fine, the scientists say. The asteroid, which measures between 3.5 and 8.5 meters in diameter, would have largely disintegrated in our atmosphere, potentially only dropping some debris in the form of small meteorites.
