Overview
- Asteroid 2026 JH2, a newly found near‑Earth object, passed safely at about 56,000–57,000 miles from Earth on Monday, roughly one quarter of the Earth–Moon distance.
- Discovered on May 10 by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona, the rock is estimated to be 15–35 meters across and traveled around 9.14 km/s during the flyby.
- The approach was too faint for the naked eye but reachable with small telescopes near peak brightness, with the Virtual Telescope Project streaming the event live from Italy.
- Orbit calculations from NASA, ESA, and other trackers show no impact risk for this encounter, with any future returns projected to be at far greater distances.
- The days‑long warning underscored detection gaps and weaker radar coverage after Arecibo’s collapse and Goldstone’s repairs, fueling calls to speed up surveys like Rubin and NASA’s NEO Surveyor and to build on DART’s deflection lessons.