{"id":487539,"date":"2026-05-16T10:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487539\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T10:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:16:09","slug":"asteroid-2026-jh2-is-about-to-fly-right-past-earth-relatively-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487539\/","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly Right Past Earth\u2014Relatively Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

look up! Asteroid 2026 JH2 is now approaching Earth; the object, which is about 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter\u2014comparable to Chicago’s Cloud Gate<\/a> sculpture\u2014will pass by on May 18. Enthusiasts will be able to observe it using a telescope or during a live broadcast organized<\/a> by Virtual Telescope.<\/p>\n

The object will pass at a minimum distance from Earth of about 57,000 miles\u2014much closer than the moon, which is about four times farther away. Among the tracked near-earth objects, or NEOs, that will pass near the planet over the next few months, it will come the closest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are tens of thousands of NEOs, which are generally of no particular concern; they are, of course, monitored, and some do have a (small) risk of impacting Earth in the next few years. According to New Scientist<\/a>, 2026 JH2 is not among them, despite the widespread use of hyperbolic terms like \u201cgrazing\u201d to describe how near it will come.<\/p>\n

An Apollo-Type Neo<\/p>\n

Asteroid 2026 JH2 is<\/a> technically an Apollo-type NEO<\/a>, according to a classification<\/a> system that takes into consideration the characteristics of the object’s orbit. An Apollo-type object has a semi-major axis larger than Earth’s (and therefore greater than one astronomical unit, the distance that separates us from the sun), and a perihelion (the shortest distance from the sun) of less than 1.017 astronomical units. (All asteroids and comets with a perihelion of less than 1.3 astronomical units are considered NEOs.)<\/p>\n

Its passage, while noteworthy, is not rare; in fact, in the past year, many objects have come as close if not closer. Noteworthy among these was, for example, the passage of the small asteroid 2025 TF<\/a> about 260 miles) from Earth’s surface.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia<\/a> and has been translated from Italian.<\/p>\n