WYOMING — No need to panic, the planet is safe tonight as an asteroid the size of a delivery truck will zip past Earth, one of the closest such approaches ever recorded.

According to NASA, it will be a near miss with no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth.

“There is no risk of the asteroid impacting Earth. But even if it did, this small asteroid – estimated to be 11.5 to 28 feet (3.5 to 8.5 meters) across – would turn into a fireball and largely disintegrate harmlessly in the atmosphere, with some of the bigger debris potentially falling as small meteorites.”

NASA

Designated 2023 BU, the asteroid will zoom over the southern tip of South America at about 5:27 p.m. MST only 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) above the planet’s surface and well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.

This view from NASA’s Scout system shows the deflection of asteroid 2023 BU’s trajectory – in red – caused by Earth’s gravity. The orbit of geosynchronous satellites is shown in green, and the orbit of the Moon is depicted by the gray oval.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system, 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 JPL who developed Scout. “In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”

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