A blue whale-sized asteroid is buzzing around Earth today — here’s how to see it

Washington—A newly discovered asteroid It will pass by Earth “closely” on Monday, May 18. It will occur just after 5 p.m. ET.

asteroid, designated 2026 Jinhui 2will first pass by the moon around 2 p.m. and then pass Earth at a distance of about 57,000 miles, which is within the distance of some communications satellites. It’s also less than a quarter of the distance of the Moon.

The asteroid was recently discovered by astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Survey Center in Arizona and the Far Point Observatory in Eskridge, Kansas. The first observation was on May 10th.

Scientists estimate the asteroid is between 50 and 115 feet in diameter, making it about the size of a blue whale. It is also roughly the same size as the 2013 object that exploded over Chelyabinsk over Russia. The asteroid’s shock wave shattered windows across large swaths of Siberia and injured more than 1,000 people, although the asteroid itself disintegrated in the atmosphere before reaching the ground.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory classifies 2026 JH2 as an Apollo-class near-Earth object, meaning its orbit intersects Earth’s path around the sun.

For those who don’t have telescopes The Virtual Telescope Project will live stream the flyby Live online, starting at 21:45 UTC (5:45 PM ET) on May 18, just after the asteroid recently approached its peak brightness. The asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye.

Asteroid 2026 JH2 orbits the sun every 3.7 years. According to the European Space Agency, it won’t pass by Earth again – at a much greater distance – until 2060.

The flyby comes three years before a more closely watched event: On April 13, 2029, near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis — a 1,230-foot-wide rock that had been feared as a potential impact risk — will pass just 20,000 miles from Earth. For at least a century, astronomers have ruled out the possibility of an Apophis collision.