NASA Warns: Asteroid to Race Past Earth at Terrifying 28,000 mph – Could It Be a Near Miss or Something More?

NASA Warns: Asteroid to Race Past Earth at Terrifying 28,000 mph – Could It Be a Near Miss or Something More?

Ever wonder what it’d feel like if a commercial airplane-sized rock decided to zoom past your backyard? Well, buckle up, because NASA’s got some stellar news: asteroid 2025 QD8 is making a lightning-fast flyby tomorrow afternoon — and nope, it’s not coming for a crash landing. This cosmic speedster will whip past us at a dizzying 28,000 miles per hour, coming no closer than about half the distance from Earth to the Moon. Measuring between 55 and 124 feet across, this space rock could easily be mistaken for a rogue building — a ‘city-killer’ if it hit Earth, but astronomers assure us it’s just here for a quick hello, no harm intended. Curious to catch this near-Earth visitor live? Just don’t look up from your front porch — you’ll want to tune into a special livestream instead. Who knew space could be so close, yet so safe? LEARN MORE

NASA has confirmed that an asteroid the size of a commercial aeroplane is set to speed past Earth tomorrow afternoon.

The space agency stated that asteroid 2025 QD8 will come as close as 135,465 miles (218,009 kilometres) from us, which is roughly half the distance from the surface of Earth to the Moon.

Measuring anywhere between 55 and 124 feet (17 and 38 meters) in diameter, the asteroid was discovered earlier this year by astronomers from the Virtual Telescope Project. It’s also expected to speed by at a blistering speed of 28,000 miles per hour.

Were 2025 QD8 to make direct contact with Earth, it would be considered a ‘city-killer’, however astronomers are keen to reassure people that 2025 QD8 will fly by at a safe distance and not cause any danger to life (via Space).

The asteroid will come within 57 percent of the average lunar distance (Gianluca Masi, The Virtual Telescope Project)

The asteroid will come within 57 percent of the average lunar distance (Gianluca Masi, The Virtual Telescope Project)

How to watch asteroid 2025 QD8 as it travels past Earth

The asteroid is expected to skim across our planet at roughly 15:56 BST tomorrow (3 September) afternoon.

Unfortunately you won’t be able to see the asteroid by simply going outside and staring up at the sky; however, anyone who is wanting to watch 2025 QD8 fly past can instead head over the a livestream set up by the Virtual Telescope Project, which begins at midnight tonight.

You can access the link here.

What would happen if an asteroid were to crash into Earth?

While asteroid 2025 QD8 is set to pose no threat to Earth, many space projectiles in the past have done so.

Earlier this year, NASA announced that an asteroid named 2024-YR4 had a ‘a very small, but notable chance of impacting our planet in 2032’. At its highest, astronomers predicted 2024-YR4 had a 3.1% of hitting Earth on 18 February 2025.

NASA regularly monitors asteroids and asses the risk they pose to Earth (Getty Stock Images)

NASA regularly monitors asteroids and asses the risk they pose to Earth (Getty Stock Images)

Thankfully this estimation has since been lowered significantly, with experts now believing 2024-YR4 now has just a 0.004 percent chance of colliding with our planet on 22 December, 2032.

However, the likelihood of the asteroid colliding with the moon has since significantly increased, with astronomers previously predicting 2024-YR4 had a 3.8 percent chance of striking the moon. Fortunately, this is not expected to alter the moon’s orbit.

NASA added that 2024-YR4 is ‘now too far away to observe with either space or ground-based telescopes’. However, the US space agency expects to make ‘further observations when the asteroid’s orbit’ when it comes back into orbit from 2028.

“The majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that don’t bring them very close to Earth, and therefore pose no risk of impact,” NASA added.

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