Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly By Earth Soon—To Say Less

Look! Asteroids 2026 JH2 is now approaching Earth; the object, which is about 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter—about the size of Chicago Cloud Gate sculpture—will pass on May 18. Celebrants will see it using a telescope or during live broadcast is scheduled and Virtual Telescope.

The object will pass as close as 57,000 kilometers from Earth—much closer than the moon, which is four times farther away. Among the tracked near-Earth objects, or NEOs, that will pass by Earth in the next few months, will come very close.

There are tens of thousands of NEOs, most of whom are not worried; they are, of course, being monitored, and some have a (low) risk of affecting the world in the next few years. According to The New Scientist2026 JH2 is not among them, although many people use exaggerated words like “pasture” to describe how close it will be.

Apollo’s Neo

Asteroid 2026 JH2 and technically Apollo-type NEOto a group a system that takes into account the shape of the object. An Apollo-type object has an axis greater than that of Earth (and therefore greater than one astronomical unit, the distance that separates us from the Sun), and a perihelion (shortest distance from the Sun) of less than 1.017 astronomical units. (All asteroids and comets with a perihelion of less than 1.3 celestial bodies are considered NEOs.)

His passing, though impressive, is not uncommon; in fact, in the last year, many things have come close, if not closer. Interesting among these was, for example, the passage of a small asteroid 2025 TF about 260 miles) from Earth.

This article appeared first WIRED Italy and translated from Italian.