Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly Right Past Earth—Relatively Speaking

look up! Asteroid 2026 JH2 is present approaching Earth; the object, which is astir 20 meters (66 feet) successful diameter—comparable to Chicago's Cloud Gate sculpture—will walk by connected May 18. Enthusiasts volition beryllium capable to observe it utilizing a scope oregon during a unrecorded broadcast organized by Virtual Telescope.

The entity volition walk astatine a minimum region from Earth of astir 57,000 miles—much person than the moon, which is astir 4 times farther away. Among the tracked near-earth objects, oregon NEOs, that volition walk adjacent the satellite implicit the adjacent fewer months, it volition travel the closest.

There are tens of thousands of NEOs, which are mostly of nary peculiar concern; they are, of course, monitored, and immoderate bash person a (small) hazard of impacting Earth successful the adjacent fewer years. According to New Scientist, 2026 JH2 is not among them, contempt the wide usage of hyperbolic presumption similar “grazing” to picture however adjacent it volition come.

An Apollo-Type Neo

Asteroid 2026 JH2 is technically an Apollo-type NEO, according to a classification strategy that takes into information the characteristics of the object's orbit. An Apollo-type entity has a semi-major axis larger than Earth's (and truthful greater than 1 astronomical unit, the region that separates america from the sun), and a perihelion (the shortest region from the sun) of little than 1.017 astronomical units. (All asteroids and comets with a perihelion of little than 1.3 astronomical units are considered NEOs.)

Its passage, portion noteworthy, is not rare; successful fact, successful the past year, galore objects person travel arsenic adjacent if not closer. Noteworthy among these was, for example, the transition of the tiny asteroid 2025 TF astir 260 miles) from Earth's surface.

This communicative primitively appeared connected WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.