A rocky asteroid 2023 BU, which was barely 8 meters in diameter, flew past the Earth on January 27, at 00:30 GMT. This celestial body did not pose a threat even in a direct collision with our planet, although a bright fire display in the sky might provide a lot of relief to those who missed the asteroid's flyby.
Gianluca Masi organized the video at a robotic observatory in the vicinity of Rome. Near-Earth objects that might be harmful to our planet are often detected by robots.
The BU of 2023 was prevented from being seen at its closest approach to Earth due to cloud cover. However, we would not be able to examine it in detail because this celestial body measures only 3.5 to 8.5 meters.
The asteroid 2023 BU travelled to Earth's surface at a distance of 3600 kilometers. Almost all of it would burn up in the event of entry into the atmosphere.
The asteroid 2023 BU appears before us as a bright small dot, while the bright lines surrounding it are stars. The video and images below show the asteroid as still visible, while the stars are blurred.
Astrophysics experiments proved to be quite successful. The asteroid's orbit was transformed from an almost circular one with a rotation period of 359 days to an extended elliptical one with a rotation period of 425 days. An astronomer from the Crimea, Gennady Borisov, discovered the asteroid by accident.
The suddenness of a discovery puts us at fear about an unpredictable threat from outer space that we will not be able to fend off. On the other hand, most near-solar asteroids that are really dangerous for the Earth are known, and there have been no new discoveries for a long time.
Surprises are unavoidable, and the most probable of them may be from the Sun's side, which does not allow normal observations in this direction, but that's another story.
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