{"id":492116,"date":"2026-05-19T09:43:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/492116\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T09:43:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:43:26","slug":"near-earth-asteroid-2026-jh2-extremely-close-encounter-a-new-image-17-may-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/492116\/","title":{"rendered":"Near-Earth Asteroid 2026 JH2 extremely close encounter: a new image &#8211; 17 May 2026."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We captured again the near-Earth asteroid <strong>2026 JH2<\/strong>, about 24-hours before its flyby, and share this new picture here.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026JH2_17may2026_c14_masi.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207217\" class=\"wp-image-207217\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026JH2_17may2026_c14_masi.jpg\" alt=\"Near-Earth Asteroid 2026 JH2: 17 May 2026.\" width=\"800\" height=\"593\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-207217\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Near-Earth Asteroid 2026 JH2: 17 May 2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The image above comes from a single 300-second exposure, remotely taken with the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.virtualtelescope.eu\/the-celestron-360mm-schmidt-cassegrain-telescope-on-paramount-me\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Celestron C14+Paramount ME+SBIG ST10-XME<\/a><\/strong> robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project in Manciano, Italy. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, showing as a dot in the center of the image, marked by an arrow: this is why the stars look like long streaks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At the time of the image, asteroid <strong>2026 JH2 <\/strong>was at about 810.000 kilometers from us and safely approaching our planet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This 14-32 meter large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 91.000 km, 24% of the average lunar distance) from us on 18 May 2026, at 22:00 UTC (source: Nasa\/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.virtualtelescope.eu\/2026\/05\/12\/near-earth-asteroid-2026-jh2-extremely-close-encounter-online-observation-18-may-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>We will show this outstanding passage live, online: join us here!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.virtualtelescope.eu\/solar-system\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Back to \u201cSolar System\u201d page<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"color: #ff0000; line-height: 1.5em;\">Support The Virtual Telescope Project!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Support us! Please, donate and <strong>celebrate the ARTEMIS II<\/strong> mission <strong>with an EXCLUSIVE and STUNNING<\/strong> digital <strong>hi-res<\/strong> image of the <strong>largest Supermoon of 2025 <\/strong>to download and frame on your wall and<b> many <strong>more pictures<\/strong>,<\/b> specifically made for supporters like you!<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.virtualtelescope.eu\/donate\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-205552 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Donatebutton.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"26\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We captured again the near-Earth asteroid 2026 JH2, about 24-hours before its flyby, and share this new picture&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[210863,18,19,17,133,451],"class_list":["post-492116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-2026-jh2","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116600597706957277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}