Small Asteroid 2026JH2 to Pass 90,917 km from Earth on 18 May

Asteroid 2026JH2 will pass Earth at an estimated distance of 90,917 kilometres, coming closest at 9:38pm UTC on 18 May. The object was spotted this week by observers at the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona and the Farpoint Observatory in Kansas. Within the next year from 13 May 2026, there are only five known asteroids that will pass within the orbit of the moon.

Only one other known asteroid will come closer to Earth than 2026JH2. The asteroid is estimated to be between 16 and 36 metres in diameter, according to data published by the Sormano Astronomical Observatory. 17 kilometres per second.

2026JH2 will be visible from the northern hemisphere only very briefly. Its rapid motion across the sky will make observation challenging even for astronomers in the southern hemisphere. ” Norris added that it is the kind of thing that would ruin a city quite efficiently if it hit.

Relatively small rocks like 2026JH2 are hard to see because they don’t reflect enough light, said Mark Burchell at the University of Kent, UK. Astronomers are confident that almost every asteroid larger than a kilometre across has been spotted and is being tracked.

Richard Moissl, who leads the European Space Agency’s Planetary Defence Office, said that if 2026JH2 did strike Earth, it would cause an event comparable to the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013.

That 2013 event had around 30 times more kinetic energy than was released by the Hiroshima bomb in 1945. New Scientist reported that as observational capabilities improve, the database of smaller objects such as 2026JH2 will expand. The asteroid’s size places it in a category still largely unknown to astronomers despite advances in tracking larger bodies.