NASA Tracks Newly Found Bus-Sized Asteroid Well Inside the Moon's Orbit

A newly discovered asteroid, 2026 JH2, will streak past Earth on May 18 at a distance far closer than the Moon but still safely outside harm’s path, offering a rare up‑close look at a small near‑Earth rock. 

Discovered by the Mount Lemmon Survey on May 10, 2026 JH2 is a compact, bus‑to‑house-sized asteroid estimated at roughly 16–35 meters across, a size that would cause regional damage only if it struck the surface. Fortunately in this case, it poses no collision threat, according to current calculations. With just a few days of observations since discovery, astronomers have been rapidly refining its orbit using radar and optical follow‑ups, and have come to the same conclusion: you don't have to cancel your vacation plans for this.

The asteroid’s closest approach will place it roughly 91,000 kilometers (about 56,700 miles) from Earth’s center, or 24% of the Earth–Moon distance and therefore making it one of the nearer recorded close passes by a newly found object. That gap is comfortably outside the outer fringes of geosynchronous satellites and far beyond practical danger to people on the ground, but close enough that scientists can extract useful information such as the rock’s orbit, rotation, and reflectivity. 

No doubt, encounters like this also feed long-term planetary‑defense work, as every close pass sharpens models that predict how objects of similar size and orbit behave, and where uncertainties tend to hide. NASA’s JPL has cataloged the pass as safe in current calculations, but the very fact the rock was only tracked a few dozen times before the flyby highlights the observation gap that still exists for smaller near‑Earth objects. That gap is why surveys like Mount Lemmon, Pan‑STARRS, and others keep scanning the sky nightly—catching a rock days before a close approach is far better than not catching it at all. 

If you want to watch the event, tune into the Virtual Telescope Project’s online feed on May 18, shortly after closest approach, when 2026 JH2 will be at peak brightness and easiest to track with both remote and backyard equipment.