New Discovery: Huge Asteroid to Skim by Earth Before the End of May

By Ward Clark | 4:06 PM on May 16, 2026

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*"Planet Earth. (Credit: NASA/Unsplash)*

On Monday, May 18th, Earth is getting a haircut; not from a barber, but from an asteroid the size of a city bus. Relax; it's not going to hit us.

At least, not this time.

A newly discovered asteroid, getting closer to Earth by the day, will soon fly past our planet. Asteroid 2026 JH2, only just spotted for the first time on May 10, 2026, is already on track to pass Earth on Monday, May 18, 2026. The asteroid will reach within a little over 90,000 km (56,000 miles) from Earth, closer than most asteroids that sail near Earth.
While the upcoming flyby of 2026 JH2 may seem a little close for comfort, astronomers have confirmed that it won’t hit Earth. Those who want to catch the close approach in action will be able to watch 2026 JH2 in the sky with amateur telescopes on Monday.

That's within the orbital radius of most "near-earth objects." So, what would have happened if it did hit the planet? Possibly, not much.

What would happen if an asteroid like 2026 JH2 entered Earth’s atmosphere? If it’s on the smaller side, there’s a good chance that it may just burn up; according to NASA, space rocks smaller than about 25 meters (about 82 feet) usually burn up as they enter Earth’s atmosphere and cause little to no damage.
Asteroids of this size aren’t always harmless, though. In 2013, an asteroid that was about 20 meters (66 feet, roughly the size of a six-story building) exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia, resulting in one of the largest meteors to be detected breaking up in Earth’s atmosphere in more than 100 years, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The Chelyabinsk meteor didn’t kill anyone, but the shockwave it created upon exploding managed to injure around 1,500 people, largely from broken glass, according to NASA.

This could be a real crowd-pleaser if, like the Chelyabinsk asteroid, it blew up too close to the surface; and while odds are long against it, if something like this happened in a major urban area (which, statistically, make up a minuscule proportion of the Earth's surface) it could cause a lot of damage, very likely in the millions of dollars. Bear in mind, 2026 JH2 is on the small side, as these things go. The one that ended the Cretaceous? The size of Mount Everest.

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Of course, if we are to believe science fiction movies on this topic, it seems that major cities attract destructive objects from space like trailer parks attract tornadoes. There's not much drama, after all, of an asteroid impact north of the Arctic Circle, somewhere in Nunavut, where there might not be a person around for a hundred miles or so. Fortunately, we're told that the government already has a plan in case a more serious threat arises; details are scarce, but it reportedly involved a nuclear warhead, a hastily-assembled spaceship, and a wacky yet lovable crew of eccentric oil-drillers.

So, hopefully, we're covered - literally. In the meantime, keep an eye on the sky. There's a lot of stuff up there.

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