{"id":376231,"date":"2026-06-26T20:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T20:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376231\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T20:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T20:02:12","slug":"a-large-harmless-asteroid-will-zip-past-earth-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376231\/","title":{"rendered":"A large, harmless asteroid will zip past Earth this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN<\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A large asteroid will zip past Earth this weekend, but don\u2019t worry: It poses no danger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The space rock \u2014 1997 NC1 \u2014 makes its closest approach<\/a> Saturday morning, coming within 1.6 million miles, according to the European Space Agency.<\/p>\n

Discovered nearly three decades ago by an asteroid-tracking system in Hawaii, the asteroid is between 2,461 feet to 5,413 feet wide \u2014 roughly the size of two to four Empire State Buildings.<\/p>\n

Skygazers with binoculars and small telescopes may be able to spot the asteroid as a small point of light passing harmlessly through the sky. It won\u2019t greet Earth from such a distance again until 2133, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

The last time an asteroid similar in size passed safely by Earth from an even closer distance was in 2022, when a space rock called 1994 PC1 made its approach.<\/p>\n

NASA, ESA and other space agencies track the paths of asteroids and other space junk so they can keep Earth safe from any possible collisions. Last year, astronomers tracked a smaller asteroid<\/a> resembling a spinning hockey puck and said there\u2019s no chance of it hitting Earth or the moon.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A large asteroid will zip past Earth this weekend, but don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[152375,69827,152374,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-376231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-1997-nc1","tag-asteroid","tag-asteroid-flyby","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}