Potentially hazardous asteroid nearing Earth

On September 18, one of the largest asteroids of the year will pass Earth at a distance slightly greater than the diameter of the lunar orbit, said a source at Russia’s Laboratory of Solar Astronomy of the Space Research Institute.

The asteroid is expected to make its closest approach around 10 a.m. Moscow time (11:00 a.m. Baku time), Caliber.Az quotes the source as saying.

It has an average size of 166 metres and a length of up to 290 metres, with a mass approximately 1,000 times greater than that of the Chelyabinsk meteorite.

As a reminder, in March 2025, Asteroid 2025 FA22, discovered by Hawaii's Pan-STARRS telescope, is a "potentially hazardous" near-Earth object (NEO) larger than 140 metres, classified by NASA for its size and proximity risks. NEOs like this are remnants from the solar system's formation, tracked globally to mitigate rare collision hazards.

By Khagan Isayev