Overview
- The asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1), which will make its closest approach at 7:16 a.m. EDT on June 27, will pass about 1.59 million miles (2.56 million km) from Earth at roughly 19,880 mph.
- Agencies say there is no impact risk for this encounter and NASA lists the object as a potentially hazardous asteroid because of its size and future close approaches.
- Teams plan radar scans using Deep Space Station 26 and coordinated optical observations while the Virtual Telescope Project will host public livestreams and amateurs can try binoculars or small telescopes.
- Estimates of the asteroid's diameter vary widely — roughly 750–1,650 meters in some analyses or smaller if it is more reflective — so radar and lightcurve data are being collected to resolve its true size and shape.
- Observation quality may be limited by bright moonlight, weather and reduced high-resolution radar capacity since Arecibo's collapse, but the data set from this pass will tighten orbit predictions and improve future impact monitoring.