Asteroid 2018 BX to flyby Earth at 0.73 LD on January 19, second of the day
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.
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
I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
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