The asteroid will make an “extraordinarily close approach” to Earth early in the morning from Thursday to Friday.

The US space agency (NASA) said Wednesday that a truck-sized asteroid will fly “extremely close” to Earth early Thursday through Friday in one of the most imminent collisions ever recorded.

However, NASA assured that it would be “almost an accident”, and there is no chance that the asteroid will hit the planet.

This newly discovered asteroid will rise 3,600 kilometers above the southern tip of South America, which is ten times closer than the sets of communications satellites that are visible in the sky, the space agency also stressed.

The scientists explained that even if a space rock were to come close to Earth, most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, and some of the larger pieces would likely fall as meteorites.

NASA’s impact risk assessment system, Scout, quickly ruled out the impact, according to lead developer Davide Farnoccia.

“But, despite the few observations, it was possible to predict that the asteroid will make an unusually close approach to the Earth,” Farnokchia said in a statement.

“In fact, this is one of the closest close encounters ever recorded for an object approaching Earth,” he added.

The asteroid discovered on Saturday, known as 2023 BU, is believed to have a diameter of 3.5 to 8.5 meters. It was first discovered by the same Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, who discovered the interstellar comet in 2019.

In a few days, astronomers around the world made dozens of observations that made it possible to determine the orbit of the asteroid.

According to NASA, the asteroid’s trajectory will be drastically altered by Earth’s gravity as it passes by, and instead of making one revolution around the Sun every 359 days, it will move in an oval orbit lasting 425 days.

DMS // RBF

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