The little one is expected to fly past our planet in a few hours. asteroid.

According to the US space agency, this is one of the closest asteroid encounters ever recorded, at a distance of only 3,600 kilometers from the surface of our planet.NASA).

Asteroid 2023 BU, with a diameter of 3.5 to 8.5 meters, will pass just above the southern tip of South America, well below – about one tenth – the orbits of geomodern satellites. This approach will occur at 2:27 AM Thursday Greek Time (4:27 PM PST Wednesday).

A newly discovered asteroid, named 2023 BU, is expected to make one of the closest near-Earth object encounters ever recorded. Thanks to conscientious teams #planetary defense Experts, we know that this does not pose a danger to the Earth.

Find out why: https://t.co/MBLpHqb7h7 pic.twitter.com/j9McEGrOVm

— NASA Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) January 25, 2023

However, it does not pose a danger, since even if it fell on our planet, one would expect it to be largely disintegrated by friction with the Earth’s atmosphere.

The asteroid was discovered last Saturday by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov from Crimea, who also found 2019 and the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. This was followed by observations of “2023 BU” by dozens of other observatories around the world.

Here it is, asteroid 2023 BU, safely approaching us in a couple of days (10,000 km from the center of the Earth, 1/4 of the distance of geostationary satellites). We filmed it a few minutes ago and will show you live during the flight!
👉🔭☄️ more: https://t.co/S1QX9cCC2C pic.twitter.com/rL2ubGJ6R4

— Virtual Telescope (@VirtualTelescop) January 24, 2023

The final analysis of its orbit data was conducted by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

American researchers have predicted that the asteroid will pass unusually close to Earth. In fact, because it gets so close, our planet’s gravity will change its course, causing it to erase its oval orbit around the sun every 425 days in the future instead of 359 so far.

According to APE-MPE, NASA