NASA Alert: Massive 1100-Foot asteroid 2003 MH4 to safely pass Earth

A giant asteroid, bigger than a stadium and almost as tall as a 100-story building, is zooming past Earth this weekend. Named 387746 (2003 MH4), this space rock is about 1,100 feet (335 meters) wide — larger than the Eiffel Tower!

Though it will safely miss Earth on May 24 at 4:07 PM IST (10:37 UTC), scientists are keeping a close watch because of its size and path. It belongs to a group called Apollo asteroids, which cross Earth’s orbit and can sometimes come dangerously close.

This asteroid travels incredibly fast — around 30,060 kilometers per hour — and will pass about 6.67 million kilometers away from Earth. That’s roughly 17 times the distance from Earth to the Moon. While that sounds far, in space terms, it’s quite close.

Asteroids like 2003 MH4 are called “Potentially Hazardous Asteroids” (PHAs) because they meet two important conditions: they are big (more than about 460 feet wide) and they come near Earth’s orbit. Even small changes in their paths caused by gravity or sunlight can increase the risk of an impact in the future.

If an asteroid this size ever hit Earth, it could cause massive destruction—imagine the force of thousands of nuclear bombs! The impact could flatten cities, cause huge tsunamis, trigger earthquakes and wildfires, and even block sunlight for months, leading to a dangerous “impact winter.”

Thankfully, NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) continuously monitors asteroids like 2003 MH4 to keep us safe. So, while this weekend’s close flyby is a reminder of space threats, there’s no need to panic.