African elephant-sized asteroid 2026 RZ
0.5 LD · ~4 m
Drawn to scale.
Silhouette: Chuanxin Yu, PhyloPic (CC0)
2026 RZ passes inside the Moon's orbit, about 203,732 km from Earth's centre (0.5× the distance to the Moon). It is 2–7 m across (estimated). If a rock this size hit Earth, it would burn up as a bright fireball high in the atmosphere; at most, small meteorites reach the ground. Astronomers spot one this size passing inside the Moon's orbit about 100 times a year, and many more pass unseen. It misses Earth on this pass. NASA's Sentry impact monitoring gives it about a 1 in 3,400 chance of hitting Earth on a later pass between 2086 and 2094; odds like these usually drop to zero as more observations come in.
For the background, read Impact risk in Asteroids.
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