Posted on 05/16/2026 6:32:10 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A hefty, never-before-seen asteroid is racing toward Earth at around 20,000 mph (32,000 km/h) and will zoom past our planet closer than some satellites on Monday (May 18), scientists say. You can watch the unusually close encounter for yourself, even if you don't have access to stargazing equipment.
The asteroid, dubbed 2026 JH2, was discovered May 10 by astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, who also spotted the superbright Comet Lemmon last year. The space rock, which has since been verified by other observatories across the globe, likely circles the sun every 3.7 years on an elliptical orbit that takes it as far out as Jupiter, according to the Small-Body Database Lookup from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
2026 JH2 is up to 115 feet (35 meters) across, or just above the maximum length of Earth's largest animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). This puts the space rock on a par with the Chelyabinsk meteor, which spectacularly exploded above Russia in 2013 and is the largest space rock to have entered Earth's atmosphere in nearly 120 years.
At around 6 p.m. EDT Monday, 2026 JH2 will shoot over Earth's surface at an altitude of around 56,000 miles (91,000 kilometers) — around a quarter the distance between our planet and the moon. At this height, the hefty space rock will sail over most of Earth's satellites but be closer to us than a handful of spacecraft, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). (There is currently no suggestion that these spacecraft are at risk of being hit by 2026 JH2.)
Due to limited observations, there is some level of uncertainty about how close the asteroid may get to Earth, scientists say. However, there is zero chance that it will impact our planet.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
However, there is zero chance that it will impact our planet.
Dammit!
Interesting!
https://meteorites.asu.edu/meteorites/dishchiibikoh
Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies
The article said this asteroid is about the size of the one that hit that Russian city a few years ago. I think it had already broken up but they did find pieces on the ground and the shock wave broke at least a thousand windows.
I was visiting in our eastern mountains several years when I heard a big explosion. It sounded just the other side of a big hill. I thought it might have been blasting at a small quarry about two miles away from my location but less than a mile given the curved road around that hill. At a meeting the next day everyone was excited about the explosion but had no additional information. Some time later I read a brick size rock had fallen in or near a home perhaps ten miles distant.
SMOD?!?
☄️
Thank goodness someone else is thinking it.
☄️☄️☄️
When I was a kid that came on after my gramma’s “ normal “ soap s and because she had possession of me until my mom got home from work, we’d watch it together.
Bless her heart, I can still see her eyebrows twitching in the wth?!? way she did when things were baffling her but shenever changed the channel.
I’ll never forget the day they staked Barnabas and she had to hug me in her rocking chair because I was crying he was dead.
Lordy I do miss that woman.
Is that a movie??
I would love to watch Looney overcome by a wave
Oh, god, this is so touching. I hope your gramma, wherever she is, is able to read this.
So sweet. You watched Dark Shadows with your gramma. 🥰
Btw, I have been watching it now, never saw it before. It’s on Saturday night, on MeTV+. here in Phoenix. (I did not know about Barnabas getting ‘staked’) 😮 it’s on out there somewhere if you want to see it again. Google where 😊
Btw, the reason I also put up that picture (besides the fact that Barnabas is so close, lol) is that the bar on Dark Shadows is called ‘The Blue Whale’.
(SMOD 2026)
Well I hope not
Laz and I have almost the same retirement plan
“… Could take out a large city, though.”
Let me know if they’re taking nominees
I hope so too
I still laugh thinking about that sweet ol hillbilly gramma suffering through that werewolf/vampire soap opera.
😊
Cutting it kind of close, astronomers!
Hilarious
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