On August 5, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) closely tracked a large near-Earth asteroid, dubbed 2025 OT7, as it safely flew past the planet.
NASA began tracking the object on July 4 of this year using the Pan-STARRS2 survey telescope located on Haleakalā in Maui, Hawaii.
Since its discovery, NASA has been closely monitoring its trajectory to assess any potential risks and to refine its orbital models. The object is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on August 5, passing at a distance of approximately 2.7 million miles.
The likely rocky object has a diameter of approximately 170 feet (~51 meters) and is classified as an Aten-type asteroid, defined as one that orbits mostly inside Earth’s orbit and can cross Earth’s path.
The object is racing past Earth at an incredible 43,400 miles per hour (69,846 kilometers per hour).
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While the object will not hit Earth, NASA has been tracking it in hopes of refining orbital data for future predictions.
NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) is tasked with detecting and tracking asteroids and comets that come close to Earth. Although 2025 OT7 posed no threat during this flyby, continuous observation of such objects is vital. This helps scientists improve orbit predictions, better understand asteroid characteristics, and prepare for potential hazards.
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Potentially hazardous asteroid
A “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” is defined by NASA as one that is larger than approximately 140 meters in diameter and passes within 7.5 million kilometers (4.65 million miles) of Earth’s orbit.
Asteroid 2025 OT7 meets the distance threshold but falls short in size to be classified as “potentially hazardous.”
However, much smaller objects, while not presenting an existential risk to humanity, have caused significant damage and injuries here on Earth.
In 2013 the Chelyabinsk Meteor, which was only about 66 feet (20 meters) in diameter, exploded in an airburst approximately 30 kilometers above the ground, releasing energy equivalent to roughly 470-500 kilotons of TNT.
The blast injured over 1,500 people, mostly from glass broken by the shockwave.
It was the largest recorded airburst since the 1908 Tunguska event. The Tunguska event was a massive explosion that occurred in 1908 over Siberia, flattening about 2,000 square kilometers of forest.
There have been smaller airbursts, including the 2009 Indonesia airburst (a 10-meter asteroid exploding over Sumatra), and the 2018 Bering Sea event, which was a roughly 10–15 meter object exploding mid-air, both causing no known injuries but highlighting ongoing risk.
Various smaller meteoroids impact Earth frequently but usually disintegrate harmlessly in the atmosphere.
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31/ATLAS
Another unusual object is hurtling toward Earth, sparking speculation that it could be alien technology sent to observe our planet—or something more sinister.
Discovered on July 1, 2025, by the ATLAS survey system in Chile, 31/ATLAS became the third confirmed interstellar object detected in our solar system, following ‘Oumuamua in 2017 and 21/Borisov in 2019.
The object is traveling roughly 58 km/s and is moving too fast to be bound by the Sun’s gravity, confirming its origin outside the solar system.
Scientists believe the object could be upwards of 10 to 20 kilometers across, making it substantially larger than previous interstellar visitors.
Most astronomers have classified the object as a weakly active comet, however Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and collaborators have proposed a controversial hypothesis; the object might be a technological probe of extraterrestrial origin, possibly even hostile.
Critics however firmly reject the idea, calling it speculative and unsupported by current observations.
The object will pass closest to the Sun on October 29, 2025.
NASA confirms that the object poses no threat to the planet, noting that it offers a rare chance to analyze material from another star system.
Astronomers are now using telescopes like Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), to monitor the object and are even considering rerouting NASA’s Juno spacecraft to intercept it near Jupiter in March 2026 for closer inspection.
