Close Call: Asteroid 2023 BU Whizzes Past Tip Of South America

Asteroid 2023 BU whizzed past the surface of the Earth in the early hours of Friday at around 00:30 am GMT, the BBC reported.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said that the asteroid was the size of a box truck and would come "well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites".

"The asteroid was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov... from his MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday, Jan. 21," the laboratory said.

BBC reported that the asteroid, which passed the southern tip of South America, had the closest approach of 3,600km.

Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL said, "In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”

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