'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
An asteroid the size of a box truck made one of the closest passes of planet Earth ever recorded.
The small near-Earth asteroid, called 2023 BU, zipped over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. ET Thursday about 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) above Earth's surface. This distance was well within the orbit of global satellites.
There was no risk of the asteroid striking Earth, according to NASA.
If the space rock, which is estimated to be 11.5 to 28 feet (3.5 to 8.5 meters) across, had headed for Earth, it would have transformed into a fireball once it entered the atmosphere and disintegrated. Any remaining debris would have fallen to the ground as small meteorites, according to the space agency.
Amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov spotted the asteroid from the MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday. Borisov had previously discovered the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019.
The Minor Planet Center, which tracks the positions of minor planets, comets and space rocks, also received recent reports of observations of the asteroid 2023 BU. Once enough observations were registered, the center announced the discovery of the asteroid. Under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union, the organization is responsible for the identification, designation and orbital data for such celestial objects.
Observatories around the world made further observations after the discovery's announcement Sunday, allowing for precise refining of 2023 BU's orbit.
The Scout impact hazard assessment system at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies analyzed the data from the Minor Planet Center and predicted that the asteroid would miss Earth.
The Center for Near Earth Object Studies, located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, calculates the trajectory of all known near-Earth asteroids to assess their potential impact on our planet.
"Scout quickly ruled out 2023 BU as an impactor, but despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth," said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at JPL who developed Scout, in a statement. "In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded."
Earth's gravity changes the trajectory of asteroids, but 2023 BU came so close to our planet that its orbit around the sun changed after the encounter.
Before Thursday's close pass, the asteroid had a circular orbit that took about 359 days to complete around the sun. Now, scientists estimate that the asteroid's orbit is elongated, extending that single orbit of the sun to 425 days.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.