Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (152637) 1997 NC1 close encounter: a new image – 31 May 2026.
We took a new picture of the potentially hazardous asteroid (152637) 1997 NC1 on its way to its spectacular flyby, next June 27. See the image below.
The image above comes from a single 120-second exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″ + Paramount MEII + SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project in Manciano, Italy. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, visible in the center of the image, marked by an arrow.
When we captured our image, asteroid 1997 NC1 was at about 19-million of kilometers from us and safely approaching.
This 710-1600 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance from us on 27 June 2026, at 11:16 UTC, safely coming as close as 2.6-million of kilometers, 6.6x the average lunar distance) (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
We will show this object live!
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