Asteroid 2026 JH2 was recently discovered by scientists and it’s making an extremely close approach to Earth on Monday, May 18. The asteroid will pass just 56,000 miles from Earth, that’s about a quarter of the distance between Earth and the moon. To talk more about it is RIchard Binzel, professor of planetary science at Massachusetts Institute of Technolology.
An asteroid recently discovered by NASA officials is being monitored after passing close to Earth on Monday.
According to officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the asteroid 2026 JH2 is about 62 feet wide and classified as a house-sized space rock.
Most asteroids orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt.
Despite this asteroid’s size, officials said it safely passed by Earth at a distance of roughly 56,000 miles.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This composite image was created by stacking multiple exposures captured using a telescope and a cooled camera.) panoramic views of the milky way galaxy from the DMZ border at Charrate Hill in Panchthar District, Nepal, on February 17, 2026.
(Ambir Tolang/NurPhoto / Getty Images)
“This small object is passing notably near Earth, much closer than the moon, but this kind of close approach occurs relatively often, nearly annually on average,” Juan Luis Cano, a part of the European Space Agency Planetary Defense Office, said.
This distance is about a quarter of that between Earth and the moon, as the average distance between the two is 239,000 miles.
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Another asteroid that will harmlessly pass by Earth is Apophis, discovered in 2004.
LU’AN, CHINA – MAY 10: Bright stars shine over the radio telescope of Longma Observatory Station on May 10, 2026 in Jinzhai county, Lu’an city, Anhui Province of China.
(Zhou Guoqiang/VCG / Getty Images)
The asteroid, which is more than 1,000 feet wide, will pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029, and caused a bit of concern at its initial discovery, as early calculations indicated a small possibility it would impact the planet.
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The asteroid is expected to pass about 23,189 miles from our planet’s surface, which is also near the distance at which some spacecraft orbit Earth, according to NASA.
This is just one of thousands of asteroids in our solar system that will regularly pass by our planet.
