Bus-size asteroid to skim past Earth at quarter of moon’s distance

An asteroid estimated to be about the size of one to two school buses will pass close to Earth on Monday, coming within 91,593 km (56,913 miles), or roughly a quarter of the average distance between Earth and the moon, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Survey in Tucson, Arizona, discovered the object on May 10 and designated it 2026 JH2.

It is classified as an Apollo-type asteroid, a group of space rocks whose orbits around the sun intersect Earth’s path.

At its closest approach, expected just before 6 pm Eastern time Monday (around 2am on Tuesday, Gulf Standard Time | 7am Tokyo), the asteroid will pass at about 24% of the Earth-moon distance.

That is roughly two and a half times the altitude of geosynchronous satellites used for telecommunications and weather monitoring, according to data from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Despite the relatively close pass, scientists say the asteroid poses no threat to Earth.

“2026 JH2 will pass safely by the Earth,” said Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and creator of the Torino Scale, which categorizes the risk of asteroid impacts.

He noted that objects of similar size pass between Earth and the moon several times a year, though only recently have surveys become sensitive enough to routinely detect them.

The asteroid likely originated in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Collisions and gravitational influences, particularly from Jupiter, can nudge such objects onto paths that bring them into Earth’s neighborhood, a phenomenon astronomers have documented for decades.

Although the asteroid has been observed through optical telescopes, its exact size remains uncertain. 

Telescopes measure visible light reflected from the object, but cannot determine how much light it absorbs versus reflects.

Infrared observations, which are more directly linked to an object’s size, are harder to obtain from Earth and are not typically used for initial discovery.

Based on brightness estimates, scientists currently place 2026 JH2 at between 15 and 30 metres (49 to 98 feet) in diameter. 

At the lower end of that range, it would be comparable to the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. 

At the higher end, it approaches the size of the object believed to have flattened forests near the Tunguska River in Siberia in 1908.

Unlike those events, however, 2026 JH2 will remain far outside Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists caution that while this pass is harmless, predicting an asteroid’s long-term trajectory can be complex. 

So far, no known asteroid poses a significant impact risk to Earth within the next century.

A much larger asteroid, Apophis, is expected to pass even closer to Earth on April 13, 2029, at a distance of about 32,000 kilometers (19,883 miles). 

Astronomers say that flyby, though closer, also presents no danger and will be visible to the naked eye in parts of the world.

Researchers say the late discovery of the asteroid — only days before its closest approach — highlights gaps in current detection capabilities. 

The collapse of the Arecibo Observatory in 2020 and ongoing repairs to NASA’s Goldstone antenna have reduced planetary radar capacity, limiting scientists’ ability to refine asteroid trajectories and assess potential risks.

Astronomers estimate that only a small fraction of near-Earth asteroids in this size range have been detected so far, though new surveys are underway to improve tracking of potentially hazardous objects.

This flyby matters because 2026 JH2 was only recently discovered, giving astronomers a good chance to observe a small near-Earth object up close.

Its pass is close in astronomical terms, but still far enough away to pose no danger.