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Space
Space
Science
Anthony Wood

A car-sized asteroid is heading toward Earth for a flyby later tonight: Here's what you need to know

A graphic showing the trajectory of an asteroid as it passes close to Earth as a circular cutout in the middle of a composite image. The background is a field of stars with bright blue blotches of light.

A car-sized asteroid will buzz Earth at a little over half the Earth-moon distance late tonight (March 24), just three days after its discovery by the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in California.

The close encounter between Earth and the asteroid designated 2026 FM3 will occur at 10:07 p.m. EDT on March 24 (0207 GMT on March 25). The flyby will see the solar system object pass 147,836 miles (237,918 kilometers) from our planet's southern hemisphere — only 61.9% of the distance to the moon — while travelling at 11,461 miles per hour (18,444 kilometers per hour), according to NASA.

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