In the early hours of 27 January 2023, a tiny asteroid will safely fly by Earth 100 times closer than the moon, 10 times closer than satellites in the geostationary ring.
Asteroid 2023 BU is three to eight metres in diameter, and as it comes just 3600 km from Earth’s surface its path will be dramatically altered by our planet’s gravity.
2023 BU was discovered about a week ago. Although it doesn’t seem like much warning, the advance detection of this very small – and safe – asteroid, shows just how much detection technologies are improving.
Get more information on this, past, and upcoming asteroid flybys on our asteroid portal from ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre.
This animation comes from the flyby visualisation tool in ESA's freely available 'Asteroid Toolkit'. The size and shape of the asteroid shown is not to scale.