Tennis court-sized asteroid 2026 VY8
0.3 LD · ~23 m
Drawn to scale: the dashed circle is the asteroid laid over it.
2026 VY8 passes inside the Moon's orbit, about 124,932 km from Earth's centre (0.3× the distance to the Moon). It is 13–42 m across (estimated). If a rock this size hit Earth, the result would be an airburst — an explosion high in the atmosphere that can break windows and cause injuries near the blast, but nothing regionally destructive. Astronomers spot one this size passing inside the Moon's orbit about 12 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 5,200 chance of hitting Earth on a later pass between 2043 and 2126; odds like these usually drop to zero as more observations come in.
For the background, read Impact risk in Asteroids.
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