{"id":644587,"date":"2026-05-15T11:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644587\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T11:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:38:18","slug":"newly-discovered-asteroid-to-make-close-pass-by-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644587\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly Discovered Asteroid to Make Close Pass by Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

An asteroid is going to whiz by Earth on Monday evening, but don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not going to hit us. Astronomers say it\u2019s somewhere in the ballpark of 50 to 100 feet wide, according to its reflective properties, and it\u2019s poised to pass within 56,000 miles of our planet (around a quarter of the distance to the moon).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dubbed 2026 JH2<\/a> in the Minor Planet Center database, the near-Earth object was first spotted on May 10, and it\u2019s been tracked by a slew of skywatchers ever since. As an Apollo-class asteroid, 2026 JH2 has an orbit that\u2019s larger than Earth\u2019s but also passes closer to the sun, meaning it overlaps with Earth\u2019s orbit like a Venn diagram. Calculations are still ongoing, but none of the data suggest a likely impact event.<\/p>\n

Read more: \u201cThe Mystery of the Dark Asteroid That Scorched Russia<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

If it did crash to Earth\u2019s surface, it could be the largest impact since 2013, when a roughly 60-foot wide meteorite lit up the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia. At the time, the Chelyabinsk meteorite<\/a> was the largest object to enter Earth\u2019s atmosphere since the Tunguska fireball of 1908. While both caused alarm, neither impact came close to extinction level events (the asteroid believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was an estimated 6 to 9 miles in diameter).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to watch the close encounter, the Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a viewing event<\/a> online at 5:45 p.m. on Monday evening. \"\"<\/p>\n

Enjoying Nautilus<\/a>? Subscribe to our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lead image: Aliaksandr Marko \/ Adobe Stock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An asteroid is going to whiz by Earth on Monday evening, but don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not going to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-644587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644587","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=644587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}