Recent News

January 19, 2018

Asteroid 2002 AJ129 will make a close approach to Earth on Feb. 4, 2018, but no closer than 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

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December 22, 2017

Months after Hurricane Maria, the Arecibo Observatory Planetary Radar has resumed normal operations, providing high-resolution images of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon Earth flyby.

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November 20, 2017

New data reveal first detected interstellar object to be a rocky, and up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated-perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide.

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Average distance between Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers).

The Asteroid Watch Widget tracks asteroids and comets that will make relatively close approaches to Earth. The Widget displays the date of closest approach, approximate object diameter, relative size and distance from Earth for each encounter. The object's name is displayed by hovering over its encounter date. Clicking on the encounter date will display a Web page with details about that object.

The Widget displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon); an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object.

Read more from the original source:

Asteroid Watch - jpl.nasa.gov