A small asteroid flew very close to Earth on Thursday night, less than a week after astronomers discovered the object.
The asteroid, named 2023 BU, was scheduled to pass over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. Eastern time. The asteroid is fairly small — less than 30 feet across, about the size of a truck — and was best visible in the skies to the west of southern Chile. For space watchers unable to view 2023 BU firsthand, the Virtual Telescope Project broadcast the event on its website and YouTube channel.
The asteroid did not hit Earth but was one of the closest approaches ever by such an object, hurtling past Earth at about 3,500 kilometers above its surface, according to a news release from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This encounter put the asteroid "well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites,” the statement noted, but the asteroid was not on track to hit any.