09-05-2025
NASA tracks stadium-size asteroid passing near Earth: Here's how to watch it live
An asteroid about the length of three football fields is due to pass closely – but safely – by Earth in a matter of hours.
Talk of asteroids coming too close for comfort to Earth may remind people of asteroid 2024 YR4, which became infamous earlier in 2025 when astronomers calculated a slight chance of it impacting with Earth. But while YR4 was eventually ruled out as a threat during its flyby in 2032, the asteroid passing Earth on Friday, May 9, never posed any danger to begin with.
The gigantic space rock, which NASA compares to the size of a stadium, has a diameter of about 950 feet It may not be on a menacing trajectory, but it will still come close enough to Earth to warrant astronomers keeping a close eye on it as it whizzes by within about 2.6 million miles of our world.
Here's everything to know about the asteroid, how the public can track it going by and why NASA keeps a close eye on inbound space rocks.
The asteroid, dubbed 2002 JX8, makes close approaches to both Earth and Venus relatively often, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by Caltech in California.
It's last trip near Earth came about two years ago, May 27, 2023, and after the 2025 flyby, it'll be about another two years until we see 2002 JX8 again on April 15, 2027.
The asteroid is much too small and far away to see without a telescope.
But those who want to catch a glimpse of the asteroid, even if it's virtual, still have a chance. The Virtual Telescope Project plans to stream the event live on YouTube. The video won't show the asteroid itself, but it will allow viewers to distinguish 2002 JX8 as a tiny dot moving past stars that appear as even tinier dots in the background.
The organization will go live at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Here's where to watch it:
The asteroid 2002 JX8 is large enough for NASA to deem it as "potentially hazardous" space object.
The JPL lab tracks any asteroids or comets with orbits that will bring them within 4.6 million miles of Earth, or 19.5 times the distance to the moon. Its Asteroid Watch dashboard displays the date of the next five closest approaches, as well as each object's approximate diameter and its distance from Earth.
After asteroid 2002 JX8, the next four asteroids slated to pass by Earth are relatively small – no bigger than a house.
Any object larger than about 150 meters (about 492 feet) that can approach the Earth to within this distance becomes potentially hazardous, according to the lab.
Most asteroids orbit within the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But some follow paths that circulate into the inner solar system, including so-called near-Earth asteroids, according to NASA.
YR4 and its much larger cousin, the equally infamous Apophis were the most alarming space rocks astronomers have discovered and studied for decades.
Now that they have been ruled out as threats to Earth, astronomers still studying such imposing space rocks could help the world's space agencies prepare to mount a planetary defense if the need ever arose.
NASA and the European Space Agency both plan to send uncrewed spacecraft to observe Apophis in the years ahead to map and study its surface to gain further insights into near-Earth asteroids.
Protecting Earth from incoming space rocks could look a little like the test NASA pulled off in 2022 when it demonstrated that it was possible to nudge an incoming asteroid out of harm's way by slamming a spacecraft into one as part of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. As of October, a craft from the European Space Agency is on the way to get an up-close look at the asteroid's remnants.
NASA is additionally working on an asteroid-hunting telescope known as the NEO Surveyor to find near-Earth objects capable of causing significant damage. Now set to launch no earlier than 2027, the telescope is designed to discover 90% of asteroids and comets that are 460 feet in size or larger and come within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: NASA tracks stadium-size asteroid passing near Earth: How to watch
