Asteroid 2023 BU – “near-Earth” Asteroid
On Thursday, January 26, asteroid 2023 BU will fly by Earth. The asteroid is small, less than five meters wide, but it’s getting closer. The space rock will pass at an altitude of about 2,178 miles above the atmosphere – a near miss on a cosmic scale – and will be closest to us at 4:17 pm ET.
Asteroid 2023 BU takes its title of “near-Earth asteroid” seriously. The tiny space guest will fly by at a distance of about a quarter of all artificial satellites in geostationary orbit. It probably won’t crash into them and destroy the world’s communications networks, plunging humanity into a new dark age of savagery, but I’ll watch anyway, just in case. I’m looking at you 2023 BU. Not a funny thing.
Cannot be seen with the naked eye – only through telescopes
Because it’s a small, dim baby, you won’t be able to see 2023 BU without the help of a powerful telescope, but very powerful telescopes are pointed at it, which will stream live asteroid porn directly to your computer. The Virtual Telescope Project plans to stream on its website and YouTube channel starting Thursday at 2:15 pm ET, although the asteroid’s perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, will not be until 4:17 pm.
An Apollo-type asteroid, 2023 BU, visits Earth roughly every 425 days, and has been for millennia… but no one noticed the humble guy until this Saturday, when astronomer Gennady Borisov from the MARGO Observatory in Crimea identified him. I hope he yelled “Eureka!”
If you have any other asteroid to watch on Thursday, you can check out 2023 BU again on December 6, 2036 when it makes its triumphant return.
“But what if they’re lying and the asteroid is heading straight for us?”
Firstly, they are not lying, and secondly, if the trajectory of this particular asteroid was slightly different and it was heading towards Earth, we would still be safe. It is small enough to burn up in the atmosphere. It is not known whether some other undetected monster asteroid is rushing towards us right now. But let’s not dwell on this possibility.