This weekend, a space visitor as big as a building will approach us. Rest assured: it's holding its trajectory... but you can watch it live from your couch.
This Saturday, April 5, a near-Earth object named 2025 BC10 will be flying into our skies before dawn. This space rock, spotted less than three months ago, will pass within 3.7 million kilometers of Earth, a mere trifle on a galactic scale. The ideal opportunity for astronomy enthusiasts to follow its cosmic ballet live, thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project. With a diameter estimated at between 360 and 800 meters, the asteroid is traveling at a relative speed of 19.5 km/s. Classified as "potentially dangerous" by NASA due to its size and orbital proximity, it poses no risk this time. Scientists are taking advantage of its passage to study these vestiges of the solar system.
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A live stellar feed from Italy
The Virtual Telescope Project will broadcast the event via streaming from 10 p.m. (French time), thanks to its robotic telescopes installed in Tuscany. Even though the asteroid will be closest to Earth at 12:12 p.m. (Paris time), the live broadcast will capture its gradual retreat, a feat made visible by long exposures of 120 seconds.
In the images already captured on March 30, 2025 BC10 appears as a sharp point, unlike the surrounding stars which form thin trails. This sharpness is due to the precise tracking of its trajectory by the instruments. To spot it during the live broadcast, you will have to watch for a brightness equivalent to a star of magnitude 14, invisible at the naked eye, but clearly detectable by specialized sensors.
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These near-Earth objects, from the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, are as fascinating as they are worrying. Although this one is much further away than the Moon, its classification is a reminder of the importance of space surveillance.
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