A bus-sized asteroid due to fly over Earth tonight is “closest thing ever recorded” – and was only spotted on Saturday

A MASSIVE asteroid will zoom past Earth in a surprise display tonight.

Amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov spotted the bus-sized cosmic rock on Saturday.

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The asteroid will be closest to Earth at around 7:27 p.m. Eastern Time, or for the British will have just passed midnight at 12:27 a.m. in the UK on Friday.

It will fly 3,600 kilometers over the southern tip of South America.

Scientists estimate that the asteroid will come ten times closer than a normal communications satellite.

Communications satellites are typically in geostationary earth orbit (GEO), which is approximately 35,790 kilometers above the equator.

Nasa’s impact hazard system, known as Scout, has allayed fears that the asteroid, known as 2023 BU, poses a threat to Earth.

Scout’s developer, engineer Davide Farnocchia, confirmed it will be a near miss with no possibility of a collision with Earth.

“But despite the very few observations, it was still able to predict that the asteroid would come extraordinarily close to Earth,” Farnocchia said in a statement.

“In fact, this is one of the closest approaches of a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”

Earth’s gravity will alter the asteroid’s path as it passes, adding about 66 days to its journey past the Sun.

The orbit of the asteroid would normally take 359 days, scientists have calculated.

But after its close encounter with our world, the asteroid will swing into a 425-day orbit.

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