Asteroid Fly-by of Earth – “Zero Chance of an Impact” Says NASA

On Sunday, June 8, 2014 a newfound Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), will fly-by the Earth on just a little over 3 times the distance to the Moon or about 777,000 miles. According to NASA, we should be safe from any possible impact.

The asteroid, about the size of 3-4 football fields and dubbed 2014 HQ124, was discovered at the end of April by NASA’s NEOWISE mission, a space telescope adapted for scouting the skies for asteroids and comets.



A “potentially hazardous asteroid,” or PHA, which refers to those asteroids 460 feet (140 meters) in size or larger that pass within 4.6 million miles (7.4 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit around the sun. There are currently 1,484 known PHAs, but none pose a significant near-term risk of impacting Earth.

“There is zero chance of an impact,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “In fact, it’s fairly common for asteroids to pass near Earth. You’d expect an object about the size of 2014 HQ124 to pass this close every few years.”

Not only will this asteroid miss the Earth this time, but based on data from over one hundred follow-up observations from NASA-funded, ground-based telescopes and amateur astronomers, the orbit of the asteroid will continue to miss us at least through the year 2200. As more data is gathered, that that time frame will be extended.