{"id":651239,"date":"2026-05-18T23:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651239\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T23:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:15:13","slug":"newly-discovered-asteroid-to-pass-closer-to-earth-than-the-moon-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651239\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly discovered asteroid to pass closer to Earth than the moon Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Virtual Telescope Project<\/a>, a website run by Italy\u2019s Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory that broadcasts views from several telescopes, is streaming the flyby live online.<\/p>\n

Many asteroids smaller than this one frequently pass by the planet unnoticed, while some others streak through Earth\u2019s atmosphere as bright fireballs in the sky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The famous Chelyabinsk meteor<\/a> is the largest space rock known to have entered Earth\u2019s atmosphere in recent history. It exploded in the atmosphere above Russia in 2013, raining fragments of rock over the Chelyabinsk district and causing broken windows and damage around the city and its surrounding areas. <\/p>\n

That explosion, caused by friction as the meteor hurtled through the atmosphere, released 30 times more energy than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to NASA<\/a>. The agency estimated the 11,000-metric-ton Chelyabinsk meteor to measure around 59 feet across \u2014\u00a0slightly smaller than asteroid 2026 JH2, though its exact size it not yet known.<\/p>\n

Astronomers routinely track asteroids and comets that could come near Earth using a network of telescopes on the ground and in space. NASA\u2019s Near-Earth Object Observations program is responsible for finding potentially dangerous asteroids and studying their orbits to determine if they pose a risk.<\/p>\n

Astronomers are keeping an especially close eye on one large space rock because it is expected to pass much closer to Earth in a few years than asteroid 2026 JH2. <\/p>\n

That asteroid, called Apophis, measures about 1,200 feet across and is projected to come within 20,000 miles of Earth on April 13, 2029.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-APEX probe is expected to rendezvous with Apophis in June 2029 to study how the close flyby of Earth affects the space rock\u2019s orbit and physical properties. The mission was designed as a follow-on to the OSIRIS-REx mission that collected the first-ever samples from an asteroid<\/a> and returned them to Earth in 2023. <\/p>\n

The probe has been operating in space since it launched in 2016, but the Trump administration\u2019s budget request for fiscal year 2027 would end the mission before the asteroid rendezvous \u2014\u00a0part of sweeping cuts proposed for NASA<\/a>. If the White House proposal is enacted as is, OSIRIS-APEX would be among more than 50 missions canceled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Virtual Telescope Project, a website run by Italy\u2019s Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory that broadcasts views from several telescopes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-651239","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\/651239","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=651239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}