Asteroid 2023 BU will come within 2,200 miles of the Earth’s surface this evening as it is expected to fly over the tip of South America, according to NASA.
NASA said the asteroid will come well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.
The small asteroid poses no threat to Earth. Even if it did enter Earth’s atmosphere, the truck-sized asteroid would largely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The asteroid was just recently discovered. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies was able to quickly determine through its Scout impact hazard assessment system it would pose no threat to Earth.
“Scout quickly ruled out 2023 BU as an impactor, but despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”