Asteroid (2026 RH79)
Closest pass on 2026-Oct-21 08:09 TDB (Julian Date: 2461334.839664249)
Key Facts
- On 2026-Oct-21 08:09, asteroid (2026 RH79) passed Earth at a nominal distance of 8,400,000 km (21.8 lunar distances).
- At closest approach, the object was traveling at 17.7 km/s relative to Earth.
- The object has an estimated size of 117 m, which is about 10 school buses.
- The miss distance was just under 22 times the distance to the Moon.
- Hazard classification: 50 to 140 meters. Reaches Earth surface to carve a crater over a kilometer wide (like Meteor Crater, Arizona), destroying infrastructure across an entire metropolitan region and generating damaging regional seismic waves.
Visual Scale Comparison
| Target | 117 m |
|---|---|
| Smaller | football pitch: 105 m |
| Larger | Great Pyramid: 138 m |
Object size compared to known reference benchmarks.
Miss Distance Orbital Dial
Concentric orbital rings showing Earth, Moon orbit, and asteroid trajectory.
Astrometric & Orbital Parameters
| Designation | 2026 RH79 |
|---|---|
| Full Object Name | (2026 RH79) |
| Nominal Miss Distance | 8,400,000 km (21.8 lunar distances / 0.0561235620844396 au) |
| 3-Sigma Minimum Distance | 8,295,156.162 km (21.579 LD) |
| Relative Velocity (v_rel) | 17.6839034750513 km/s (about 2.5 ISS orbital speeds) |
| Velocity at Infinity (v_inf) | 17.6812186130803 km/s |
| Time Uncertainty (3-sigma) | 01:56 |
| Absolute Magnitude (H) | 22.42 mag |
| Orbit Solution ID | 4 (NASA JPL Small-Body Database) |
| Inside Moon Orbit | No |
| Inside Geostationary Ring | No |
Cite this page
Permanent URL: https://whatnearlyhitus.com/approaches/2026-Oct-21/2026-rh79/ | Machine-readable twin: index.json
APA:
What Nearly Hit Us Project. (2026). Asteroid (2026 RH79) Close Approach on 2026-Oct-21 08:09. What Nearly Hit Us. Retrieved from https://whatnearlyhitus.com/approaches/2026-Oct-21/2026-rh79/MLA:
"Asteroid (2026 RH79) Close Approach on 2026-Oct-21 08:09." What Nearly Hit Us, What Nearly Hit Us Project, 2026-09-24, https://whatnearlyhitus.com/approaches/2026-Oct-21/2026-rh79/.BibTeX:
@misc{approach_2026RH79_202621,
title = {Asteroid (2026 RH79) Close Approach on 2026-Oct-21 08:09},
author = {{What Nearly Hit Us Project}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://whatnearlyhitus.com/approaches/2026-Oct-21/2026-rh79/},
note = {Primary upstream source: NASA/JPL CNEOS CAD API}
}