CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.: An asteroid the size of a delivery truck will pass Earth on Thursday night, one of the closest such encounters ever recorded.

NASA insists it will be a close call, with no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth.

According to NASA, this newly discovered asteroid will fly 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) above the southern tip of South America. That's ten times closer than the swarm of communication satellites circling overhead.

The closest approach will take place at 7:27 p.m. EST (9:27 p.m. local.)

Even if the space rock got much closer, scientists predicted that most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, with some of the larger pieces falling as meteorites.

According to Davide Farnocchia, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the agency's Scout impact hazard assessment system quickly ruled out a strike.

"However, despite the few observations, it was able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach to Earth," Farnocchia said in a statement. "In fact, this is one of the closest approaches ever recorded by a known near-Earth object."

The asteroid 2023 BU, discovered on Saturday, is estimated to be between 11 feet (3.5 meters) and 28 feet (8.5 meters) across. It was discovered by the same Crimean amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov, who discovered an interstellar comet in 2019. Hundreds of observations were made by astronomers all over the world within a few days, allowing them to fine-tune the asteroid's orbit.

The asteroid's path will be significantly altered by Earth's gravity once it passes by. According to NASA, instead of circling the sun every 359 days, it will enter an oval orbit lasting 425 days.