Asteroid 2023 BU is Seen in Amazing Video Before Approaching Earth

Well, little buddy 2023 BU is just a small asteroid minding its own business, hurtling through space at breakneck speeds. But don’t let its size fool you. It’s still packing quite a punch if it were to hit Earth. But don’t worry; it’s not expected to come close enough to cause any trouble.

The asteroid is just on a leisurely cruise through the asteroid belt, taking in all the sights and sounds of our solar system. Maybe it’ll even stop by Mars for a quick selfie with the rover. But one thing’s for sure, 2023 BU is living its best life, asteroid-style.

The Virtual Telescope Project presents footage of the 2023 BU asteroid

Thanks to the impressive powers of the Virtual Telescope Project and the intuition and knowledge of Gianluca Masi, it is possible to observe footage of the 2023 BU asteroid before it makes its very close approach to our planet.

The images were captured on January 26th, 2023. At the time of the capture, the asteroid was less than 40,000 kilometers (25,854 miles) away from Earth. This may seem like a close proximity, but in cosmic terms, it was still quite a distance away. In fact, the closest point of approach for 2023 BU to Earth was about 3,600 kilometers (2,236 miles) away. This means that while it did pass relatively close to our planet, there was no cause for concern as it posed no threat to Earth.

The asteroid belt is a region of our solar system located between Mars and Jupiter where a large number of asteroids and minor planets orbit the Sun. The asteroid belt is not a solid structure. Instead, it is a disc-shaped region with an average diameter of about 2-4 AU (1AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun). The width of the asteroid belt varies from a few million kilometers at its narrowest point to more than 20 million kilometers at its widest. The total area of the asteroid belt is roughly 1.5 billion square kilometers, which is roughly equivalent to the area of Russia.