Which asteroids are passing Earth this week?

The list shows the asteroids due to pass within about 20 Moon distances in the next seven days, in date order, from NASA's close-approach data. Sizes are ranges, because most of these rocks have only been seen as points of light, and their size is judged from how bright they look.

An asteroid is a lump of rock or metal left over from when the planets formed. Most circle the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. A few have orbits that bring them into our part of space. When an asteroid or comet's path around the Sun comes close to Earth's, astronomers call it a near-Earth object.

As of 4 November 2026, we know 43,065 of them. The number grows by a few every day, because the telescopes keep finding more. Most are small: tens of metres across, the size of a house or a football pitch. Many were spotted only days before they passed.

Astronomers list a pass as close when it comes within about 20 times the Moon's distance. The Moon is about 380,000 kilometres away on average, so a "close" pass can still be millions of kilometres off. That is why the list above gives distances in Moon distances.

Passes inside the Moon's orbit sound alarming, but they happen often. In 2025 there were 189 that we know of. Almost all were rocks a few metres to a few tens of metres across. Something that small would burn up or burst high in the air if it ever did hit.

Every clear night, survey telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii, Chile and elsewhere photograph the sky and look for points of light that move. Each sighting goes to the Minor Planet Center. From there, NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies works out every new orbit and adds the passes to the list this page uses.

The newest eye is the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. It photographs the southern sky again and again, and is expected to find many more small asteroids. That is part of why the count of known asteroids keeps climbing. More passes on our list does not mean more asteroids. It means we see more of the ones that were always there.

Small asteroids are dark and faint. Many come towards us from the direction of the Sun, where telescopes can't look. So some are found only after they have gone by. When that happens, the pass is added to the record, which is why last year's count can still rise.

This is the reason the surveys focus on larger asteroids first. A rock tens of metres across can slip past unseen. One hundreds of metres across is far easier to spot, years or decades ahead. For those, the question is not "what passes this week" but whether any is on a path to hit us. That has its own page: Could an asteroid hit Earth?