In just a few days, an asteroid the size of an airplane will pass by Earth, but there’s no need to ring the alarm bells. That’s because the asteroid, named 2025 OW, is sure to miss our planet as it makes its closest approach on Monday, July 28, 2025.
While some may break out in a cold sweat hearing about a passing asteroid, astronomers are almost never flustered by this kind of event. With the help of data collected by observatories, they know that 2025 OW — and thousands of other asteroids coursing through space right now — pose no threat to our planet. Even though 2025 OW won’t impact Earth, the need to keep a close eye on similar asteroids remains a round-the-clock priority.
An Asteroid Approach Forecast
It should come as comforting news that asteroid approaches happen all the time with no repercussions. In fact, multiple asteroids are approaching within the next week. But with the exception of 2025 OW, they’ll all be more than a million miles away from Earth. Also, none of the asteroids are large enough to raise concern.
Most near-Earth objects (NEOs) aren’t dangerous to Earth, but a select few require more attention. Astronomers will flag potentially hazardous asteroids, which are more than 460 feet in size and with orbits that bring them within 4.6 million miles of Earth’s orbit.
Measuring in at an estimated 220 feet and traveling at 47,000 mph, 2025 OW is not considered a potentially hazardous asteroid, despite its upcoming approach being 393,000 miles from Earth. This isn’t even the closest approach in the past month — on July 19, an asteroid by the name of 2025 OS passed 2,534 miles from Earth. Fortunately, it was only somewhere between 8 and 19 feet in diameter.
Read More: 5 of the Biggest Extraterrestrial Impacts That Moved Oceans and Made Moons
Tracking the Orbits of Asteroids
Astronomers often know how an asteroid’s orbit is shaped, which is why they can say with certainty that 2025 OW will miss Earth.
Hundreds of thousands of asteroids can be tracked thanks to projects that produce observations from ground-based telescopes around the world. Data from observatories is sent to the Minor Planet Center, an international organization that collects information on asteroids and other small bodies in space.
NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) follows the orbits of all known NEOs and makes predictions on their close approaches with Earth. Astronomers currently recognize over 30,000 NEOs out of the 1.1 million asteroids in our solar system.
How Often Does an Asteroid Hit Earth?
The frequency of asteroid impacts correlates with the size of an asteroid. On the smallest scale, 100 tons of meteoric dust hits Earth every day, and small objects the size of sand grains and pebbles frequently enter our atmosphere as well. If a smaller asteroid happens to get too close to Earth, it will usually just burn up in the atmosphere and not make an impact on the surface.
The last major asteroid impact on Earth to inflict any significant damage was in 2013, when an asteroid around 20 meters in diameter exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, releasing the same amount of energy as 500 kilotons of TNT. This kind of event only happens every 60 to 80 years on average.
An event like the Tunguska impact — when a 160- to 200-feet wide asteroid exploded above the East Siberian taiga in 1908 — only happens every 200 to 300 years on average.
An even larger asteroid than the one from the Tunguska impact will approach Earth within the next decade; 99942 Apophis, around 1,500 feet wide and 550 feet tall, will pass by Earth in 2029. It was originally thought that the asteroid may have a small chance to impact Earth in 2036 or 2068, but NASA has declared that, based on updated observations, we’re safe from Apophis for at least 100 years.
Read More: City-Killer Asteroid Won't Harm Earth, But It May Hit the Moon Instead
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
University of Arizona. How often do asteroids strike Earth?
NASA. NASA Analysis: Earth Is Safe From Asteroid Apophis for 100-Plus Years
Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.
