Asteroid 2018 BX to flyby Earth at 0.73 LD on January 19, second of the day

A newly discovered asteroid designated 2018 BX will flyby Earth at 0.73 LD / 0.00188 AU (~281 243 km / 174 756 miles) at 23:00 UTC on January 19, 2018. This is the second known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance today, the other one will fly by at 20:22 UTC.
Asteroid 2018 BX belongs to the Aten group of asteroids. It was first observed at Catalina Sky Survey on January 18, a day before its closest approach.
Its diameter is between 3.6 and 8 m (11.8 – 26.2 feet) and it will fly past us at a speed (relative to the Earth) of 5.85 km/s.
[ Ephemeris | Orbit Diagram | Orbital Elements | Physical Parameters | Close-Approach Data ]
2018 BX is the second known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance today, the 4th known within 1 lunar distance since January 15, 5th since the start of the year and the 59th since January 1, 2017. You can find them all in our Near-Earth Objects category.
It also comes one day after asteroid 2018 BD flew past us at just 0.10 LD / 0.00026 AU (~38 895 km / 24 168 miles), some 7 hours after it was discovered.
Reference:
Asteroid 2018 BX at Minor Planet Center; at CNEOS
Featured image: Featured image: The green line indicates the object's apparent motion relative to the Earth, and the bright green marks are the object's location at approximately one-hour intervals. The Moon's orbit is grey. The blue arrow points in the direction of Earth's motion and the yellow arrow points toward the Sun. Credit: Minor Planet Center.
If you value what we do here, create your ad-free account and support our journalism.
Related articles
Producing content you read on this website takes a lot of time, effort, and hard work. If you value what we do here, select the level of your support and register your account.
Your support makes this project fully self-sustainable and keeps us independent and focused on the content we love to create and share.
All our supporters can browse the website without ads, allowing much faster speeds and a clean interface. Your comments will be instantly approved and you’ll have a direct line of communication with us from within your account dashboard. You can suggest new features and apps and you’ll be able to use them before they go live.
You can choose the level of your support.
Stay kind, vigilant and ready!
You can also support us by sending us a one-off payment using PayPal: