Basketball-court-sized asteroid to skim past Earth closer than the Moon
TL;DR
A 16–35 metre near-Earth asteroid named 2026 JH2 will pass about 90,000 km from Earth on May 18, 2026—roughly a quarter of the Earth–Moon distance— posing no danger and may be visible with a small telescope (mag ~11.5). It was discovered May 10 by the Mt. Lemmon Survey and will be tracked with a livestream by the Virtual Telescope project.
- This asteroid is as big as a basketball court and it's about to skim past Earth, even closer than the Moon BBC Sky at Night Magazine
- Asteroid discovered days ago to make close Earth flyby on Monday FOX Weather
- Asteroid set to fly very close to Earth New Scientist
- Newly-discovered asteroid to pass closer to Earth than the moon next week AL.com
- Near-Earth Asteroid 2026 JH2 extremely close encounter: online observation – 18 May 2026 The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0
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Read on BBC Sky at Night Magazine