Massive Asteroid to Pass Close by Earth Tomorrow: Watch Live

A colossal asteroid, roughly the size of a football stadium, is set to make a close approach to Earth on Friday morning. NASA is closely observing the asteroid due to its size and proximity to our planet, though there is no immediate threat. The asteroid, measuring about 880 feet across, will pass Earth on Friday, coming within approximately 4 million miles—around 17 times the distance between Earth and the Moon, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Named 2011 AM24, this asteroid follows an orbit around the Sun that brings it near Earth every 467 days, though such close encounters are rare. Its next close approach is scheduled for September 21, 2038, but at a much greater distance of about 17 million miles.

NASA categorizes objects larger than 492 feet that come within 4.6 million miles of Earth as “potentially hazardous objects.” While 2011 AM24 does not pose a threat, its proximity warrants careful monitoring. The asteroid 2011 AM24 is expected to pass Earth around 10:56 a.m. EDT on Friday. Despite its close approach, the asteroid may not be visible to the naked eye due to its distance. However, NASA provides a virtual asteroid tracker that shows real-time locations of asteroids within the solar system, and the Virtual Telescope Project will offer a livestream of the event.

NASA estimates that there are more than 1.3 million asteroids within our solar system. These rocky bodies orbit the Sun in a manner similar to planets but are much smaller. They are remnants from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Asteroid 2011 AM24 is among the 18,232 Apollo-class asteroids, known for their potential to cross Earth’s orbit. NASA has intensified its focus on asteroid threats in recent years. In 2022, NASA successfully conducted its first Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), altering an asteroid’s orbit by impacting it with a spacecraft. This mission demonstrated a method to potentially deflect asteroids that could pose a future threat. Additionally, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was dispatched to study the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It collected samples from Bennu and returned them to Earth in September 2023. The research aims to understand Bennu’s composition and its potential future threat, as scientists project a possible collision with Earth in 2182. Current estimates suggest a one-in-2,700 chance of Bennu impacting a region of Earth the size of Texas, based on a 2023 study published in Icarus.

In addition to the large asteroid, a smaller asteroid, approximately the size of an airplane, will also pass close to Earth around 1:41 a.m. EDT on Friday. Known as 2024 MH1, this 90-foot asteroid will come within 1.1 million miles of our planet.