On January 26, 2023, asteroid BU flew over the edge of South America only 3,500 km from the Earth – this distance is 10 times closer than the distance of geosynchronous satellites located at an altitude of 35 thousand kilometers.
According to astronomers, the width of asteroid 2023 BU is between 3.5 and 8.5 meters. Although the flyby was the closest ever observed to such near-Earth objects, it did not pose a direct threat to Earth — otherwise it would have simply disintegrated, displaying a bright but safe light show.
“This small asteroid would have simply turned into a fireball and largely disintegrated in the atmosphere, with some of the larger fragments potentially falling to Earth as small meteorites,” NASA said.
Astronomers discovered the asteroid only the day before last Saturday, the first was Gennady Borisov, who works from an observatory in Crimea occupied by Russia.
The Scout Collision Hazard Assessment System at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) quickly calculated its orbit, concluding that the rock would orbit Earth and hurtle back into deep space.
“Scout quickly ruled out 2023 BU as an impactor, but despite very few observations, he was able to suggest that the asteroid would make an extremely close flyby of Earth. In fact, this is one of the closest approaches of a known near-Earth object ever recorded,” said Scout developer and JPL engineer Davide Farnocchia.
The asteroid passed so close that NASA expects its regular orbit around the Sun to be altered. Before approaching the Earth, the course of the object around the Sun was approximately circular with a 359-day year. Now its orbit will be elliptical and will move roughly midway between the solar paths of Earth and Mars. The asteroid will take 425 days to orbit the Sun.
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Although asteroid 2023 BU did not pose a real threat, its close flyby reminded us of the potential dangers of a catastrophic collision. Last year, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was tested, when the space probe successfully rammed and changed the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, shortening its rotation period by 32 minutes. This is the first original test of the “kinetic impactor” method to protect the Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids, and it turned out to be successful. In the future, humanity will thus be able to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids and avoid a cataclysm.
Source: NASA, Techspot
