The asteroid will swing by Earth on Monday and be close enough to be visible using an amateur telescope
By Adam Kovac edited by Claire Cameron
Getty Images/Erik Simonsen
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A newly-discovered asteroid estimated to be about as big as the Lincoln Memorial is set to fly between the moon and Earth today—thankfully, scientists say there is no risk of a collision with our planet.
The space rock was first spotted on May 10 by astronomers at Tucson’s Mount Lemmon Survey, the same observatory that discovered a spectacular comet visible with the naked eye last year. The asteroid, called 2026JH2, likely has a diameter of between 46 to 98.5 feet—for comparison, that's between the size of the Parthenon (45 feet tall) and the Lincoln Memorial (99 feet tall).
At its closest approach at 5:23 P.M. EDT, the asteroid will be within 56,628 miles from Earth—about 24 percent of the distance from our planet to the moon—and traveling at approximately 19,500 miles per hour relative to Earth. That distance means it will pass below large space-based observatories like NASA's Chandra X-Ray Telescope and above most commercial satellites. That proximity also means its trajectory will be visible to amateur telescopes. The Virtual Telescope Project will also live stream the near-miss starting at 3:45 P.M. EDT.
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Despite being in Earth’s neighborhood for the moment, the asteroid has a far different orbit than our planet, swinging out past Mars towardJupiter’s orbital plane, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Each of the asteroid’s rotations around the Sun takes just under 1,374 days, but its next close-approach to Earth won't come until 2060, according to the European Space Agency.
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