{"id":640966,"date":"2026-05-13T17:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640966\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T17:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:10:12","slug":"newly-discovered-asteroid-will-make-a-close-but-safe-encounter-with-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640966\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly discovered asteroid will make a close, but safe, encounter with Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A newly discovered asteroid will pass within about\u00a056,000 miles\u00a0of Earth on Monday, significantly closer than the distance between Earth and the moon.<\/p>\n

There is no need to worry or cancel any plans, however. Current calculations show no evidence that the object will hit Earth.<\/p>\n

The asteroid was\u00a0identified<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>several days ago by astronomers at five observatories, including Farpoint Observatory in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, and Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona\u2019s Santa Catalina Mountains.<\/p>\n

\"Mario<\/p>\n

Mario Tama\/Getty Images – PHOTO: The NASA logo is displayed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on October 15, 2025 in La Canada Flintridge, California.<\/p>\n

The asteroid, designated\u00a02026 JH2<\/a>, is likely between\u00a050\u00a0and\u00a0100 feet\u00a0across, according to estimates from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That estimate is based on how bright the object appears and how much light scientists think its surface reflects.<\/p>\n

Astronomers are still working to better understand the asteroid\u2019s orbit and physical characteristics. So far, the object has been tracked only\u00a024 times over several days. While its trajectory is still being refined, current calculations show no impact risk.<\/p>\n

‘God of chaos’ asteroid to pass close to Earth in 2029<\/a><\/p>\n

The asteroid\u00a0is considered an Apollo-class near-Earth object.<\/p>\n

“These asteroids have an orbit that is larger than Earth’s orbit around the Sun and their path crosses Earth’s orbit,” according to NASA.<\/p>\n

The Virtual Telescope Project plans to stream the encounter live beginning at\u00a05:45 p.m. ET on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A newly discovered asteroid will pass within about\u00a056,000 miles\u00a0of Earth on Monday, significantly closer than the distance between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[9480,271405,276775,718,79,193],"class_list":["post-640966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-asteroid","tag-earth39s-orbit","tag-farpoint-observatory","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}