Asteroid 2023 EY is about 52 feet (16 meters) across and is expected to pass within 149,000 miles (239,800 kilometers) of Earth’s surface on Thursday, or just about 62% of the average lunar distance (opens in new tab), according to astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project. While this makes the encounter very close astronomically, there is no chance that 2023 EY will affect our planet based on its current orbit.
The close encounter with Earth means that larger ground-based telescopes should have no problem resolving the asteroid as it zooms past the planet. If you want to watch the flyby, the Virtual Telescope Project will host a free live stream Thursday beginning at 20:00 EST (0000 GMT on March 17) thanks project’s website (opens in new tab) or YouTube channel (opens in new tab).Related: What are asteroids?
Asteroid 2023 EY was first discovered a few days ago, on March 13, by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) operated by the University of Hawaii. ATLAS is the first to be able to scan the entire sky every 24 hours, enabling astronomers to better catalog and identify near-Earth objects such as asteroids.
The survey consists of four telescopes, each capable of surveying an area of the sky 100 times larger than the full moon, according to NASA (opens in new tab). Two of the telescopes are in Hawaii, while the other two are based in South Africa and Chile respectively.
Together, ATLAS has discovered over 700 near-Earth asteroids so far, none of which have threatened the planet.
“We have yet to find any significant asteroid impact threat to Earth, but we continue to search for the large population that we know is still to be found. Our goal is to find any possible impact years to decades in advance , so it can be deflected with a capability using technology we already have, like DART,” NASA’s Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at the agency’s headquarters, said in a statement (opens in new tab).
While 2023 BY was never predicted to hit Earth, another asteroid recently made waves when it was given a 1-in-600 chance of hitting our planet in 2046. The second space rock poses a longer risk and will surely miss the planetNASA announced.
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