Los Angeles: An asteroid, named 2023 BU, sailed harmlessly past Earth on Thursday, space scientists said.
Davide Farnocchia, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said the near miss “is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”
The asteroid was discovered on Saturday, just a few days out from its expected encounter with Earth. It was identified by an amateur astronomer, Gennadiy Borisov, in Crimea.
At its nearest point, the asteroid was just 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) from Earth’s surface — just a quarter of the height of many of the geostationary satellites that make our telephones and car navigation systems work.
Borisov also discovered an interstellar comet in 2019, NASA said.
2023 BU is said to be between 3.5 meters (11 feet) and 8.5 meters (28 feet).
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