Illustration of Earth with several asteroids passing at different distances, one flagged as potentially hazardous

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(2007 DX60)

Designation: 2007 DX60 · NASA id: 3369097

Estimated diameter: 95 – 213 meters

≈ a football pitch
That comparison is of size only — what an impact would do depends on speed, angle, composition and where it arrives, none of which follows from width.
(absolute magnitude H = 22.23) · JPL Small-Body Database →

Earth impact concern
No identified impact threat
Why?
  • Its closest recorded pass was 79.4 lunar distances.
  • It is not on NASA/JPL’s Sentry list, which holds every object with a computed chance of impact above zero. Most objects are not on it.
What the four levels mean
  • No identified impact threat — not on any risk list. 98.8% of the objects here.
  • On a monitored risk list — a computed chance above zero, however small. 1.2% of the objects here.
  • Among the highest-ranked — Palermo at or above −2. Two objects worldwide qualify, both studied for decades and both centuries away.
  • Exceptional — Torino 1 or more, or Palermo at or above zero. No object anywhere currently qualifies.

These describe where an object sits in a catalogue, not how dangerous it is. The full ranked list is on the impact risk page.

Energy of motion, if it ever entered the atmosphere

2.6 megatonnes – 95.5 megatonnes of TNT

This is not a forecast. Nothing here says this object will arrive, and almost nothing ever does — what is actually assessed, by people with far better data than this page has, is on the impact risk page. This is simply the kinetic energy such a body would carry, worked out from its size and its usual encounter speed.

The range spans a factor of 37, and it cannot be narrowed. Nobody has weighed this object. Its diameter is inferred from how bright it is under an assumed reflectivity, which carries a fixed factor of 2.24 — and because mass goes as the cube of diameter, that alone becomes a factor of 11. Density is then assumed somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 kg/m³, from a loose rubble pile to dense rock. Quoting a tighter figure would be invented precision.

Megatonnes do not mean what the word suggests here. Most of this energy is spent high in the atmosphere, not on the ground, and the comparison with weapons misleads badly. The Chelyabinsk body released around 440 kilotonnes in 2013 — this same calculation gives it 166 to 904 — and the damage was broken windows across a city, from the shock wave of an airburst some thirty kilometres up. No crater, and nothing that reached the ground intact.

Why is one asteroid “hazardous” when closer ones are not?

Because the flag has nothing to do with how close it came on the day. NASA marks an object a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid only if both of these are true of its orbit and its size:

  • Its orbit can bring it within 0.05 AU of Earth’s — about 7.5 million km. This is the Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance, the closest the two paths ever come, not the distance on any given pass.
  • It is big enough to matter — absolute magnitude 22.0 or brighter, which is roughly 140 metres across and up. That threshold is a planning convention, not a physical boundary: it is about the size at which an impact could do regional damage. Smaller objects are not harmless, they are simply outside this definition — the Chelyabinsk object of 2013 was around 20 metres and injured about 1,500 people with the shock wave from its airburst, without ever reaching the ground intact.

The two terms: AU — astronomical unit, the average Earth–Sun distance, 149,597,871 km. 0.05 AU is about 7.5 million km.
MOID — minimum orbit intersection distance, the closest the two orbits ever come, whatever the timing. See the glossary for NEO, PHA and H.

So a large rock passing at 39 million km today can be flagged, because on some future orbit it could come far nearer — while a pebble skimming past at 4 million km is not, because it would never reach the ground.

Three objects that all passed Earth on 30 August 2026 make the point better than any definition:

Object Size Orbit’s closest to Earth’s Missed by, that day Flagged
2013 JR28 122–272 m 5.3 M km (0.035 AU) 39.2 M km Yes — both tests pass
2012 LE11 629–1,406 m 23.3 M km (0.156 AU) 26.1 M km No — orbit never gets near enough
2007 EK 3.7–8.2 m 198,000 km (0.0013 AU) 4.2 M km No — far too small

The middle one is five times larger than the flagged one and passed closer on the day, but its path can never come within 23 million km of ours. The last one’s orbit crosses inside the Moon’s distance — nearer than any other object here — and it is still not hazardous, because at a few metres across it would burn up long before it landed.

“Potentially hazardous” is a watchlist criterion, not a prediction. None of these is on a collision course; the label means an object is worth keeping precise track of over the coming centuries.

Orbital Data

Orbit class: AMO — Near-Earth asteroid orbits similar to that of 1221 Amor
1.017 AU < q (perihelion) < 1.3 AU

Orbital period572.2 days (1.57 years)
Eccentricity.1398251318815767 (0 = circular, closer to 1 = more elongated)
Semi-major axis1.348803665104476 AU
Inclination8.292878097590339° (tilt of its orbit vs. Earth's)
Perihelion distance1.160207014748889 AU (closest approach to the Sun)
Aphelion distance1.537400315460064 AU (farthest from the Sun)
Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance0.20342 AU = 30,431,797 km
(closest its orbit path ever comes to Earth's, regardless of timing)
Ascending node longitude340.6813750911132°
Argument of perihelion278.7129019245612°
Mean anomaly / motion262.0020368891333° / .6291887775951507°/day
Jupiter Tisserand invariant4.855 (helps distinguish asteroids from comets)
Reference epoch / equinoxJD 2461000.5 / J2000
Orbit determined2021-04-15 00:29:11
Observed2007-02-21 to 2018-03-27 (4052 day arc, 57 observations used)
Orbit uncertainty0 (0 = best known, 9 = least certain)

Close Approach History

Every close approach NASA has on record for this object — 62 total.

next approach: 2029-06-07

Date Passed near Velocity (km/h) Miss distance
2200-09-29 Earth 21934.71 61,752,279 km
161 LD
2192-04-16 Earth 14070.76 39,480,317 km
103 LD
2189-09-16 Earth 20461.99 54,978,672 km
143 LD
2181-03-31 Earth 17866.83 45,483,617 km
118 LD
2178-09-02 Earth 18638.24 47,162,276 km
123 LD
2170-03-17 Earth 20889.68 52,150,641 km
136 LD
2167-08-17 Earth 16584.67 39,053,969 km
102 LD
2159-03-05 Earth 23101.99 58,690,441 km
153 LD
2156-07-30 Earth 14209.27 32,621,653 km
84.9 LD
2148-02-22 Earth 24940.88 64,650,030 km
168 LD
2145-07-10 Earth 11124.30 30,539,926 km
79.4 LD
2142-10-15 Earth 24035.29 70,613,974 km
184 LD
2137-02-10 Earth 26256.42 70,039,425 km
182 LD
2134-05-26 Earth 2499.76 33,381,837 km
86.8 LD
2131-10-03 Earth 22600.48 64,504,951 km
168 LD
2123-04-22 Earth 12780.84 37,819,716 km
98.4 LD
2120-09-18 Earth 20898.90 56,616,908 km
147 LD
2112-03-31 Earth 17771.33 44,943,559 km
117 LD
2109-09-01 Earth 18656.67 47,018,597 km
122 LD
2101-03-13 Earth 21330.81 53,440,278 km
139 LD
2098-08-11 Earth 15898.64 37,044,689 km
96.4 LD
2090-02-25 Earth 24074.75 61,704,356 km
161 LD
2087-07-18 Earth 12552.08 30,807,537 km
80.1 LD
2084-10-16 Earth 24430.35 72,297,402 km
188 LD
2079-02-11 Earth 25998.38 69,109,045 km
180 LD
2076-05-29 Earth 911.83 32,962,611 km
85.8 LD
2073-10-01 Earth 22737.43 64,472,441 km
168 LD
2065-04-15 Earth 13963.73 38,820,793 km
101 LD
2062-09-13 Earth 20370.78 54,243,204 km
141 LD
2054-03-22 Earth 19407.08 48,448,540 km
126 LD
2051-08-22 Earth 17367.31 42,083,687 km
109 LD
2043-03-02 Earth 23152.84 58,784,442 km
153 LD
2040-07-25 Earth 13656.92 32,002,792 km
83.3 LD
2037-10-19 Earth 24857.37 73,859,469 km
192 LD
2032-02-13 Earth 25751.69 67,961,259 km
177 LD
2029-06-07 next Earth 2255.64 32,413,922 km
84.3 LD
2026-10-02 Earth 22853.20 65,023,415 km
169 LD
2018-04-14 Earth 14363.91 39,060,342 km
102 LD
2015-09-11 Earth 20252.99 53,350,566 km
139 LD
2007-03-18 Earth 20176.53 50,067,446 km
130 LD
2004-08-16 Earth 16793.40 39,852,103 km
104 LD
1996-02-25 Earth 23903.24 61,266,977 km
159 LD
1993-07-16 Earth 12304.57 30,833,163 km
80.2 LD
1990-10-14 Earth 24385.39 71,417,363 km
186 LD
1985-02-06 Earth 26301.43 70,728,544 km
184 LD
1982-05-09 Earth 7707.74 34,123,773 km
88.8 LD
1979-09-24 Earth 22028.77 61,003,584 km
159 LD
1971-04-01 Earth 17098.02 43,250,527 km
113 LD
1968-08-31 Earth 18872.09 47,701,465 km
124 LD
1960-03-07 Earth 22016.72 55,288,914 km
144 LD
1957-08-02 Earth 14864.63 34,465,930 km
89.7 LD
1949-02-15 Earth 25158.87 66,135,567 km
172 LD
1946-06-22 Earth 6937.15 31,513,706 km
82.0 LD
1943-10-04 Earth 23297.39 66,522,477 km
173 LD
1935-04-16 Earth 13728.50 38,086,167 km
99.1 LD
1932-09-11 Earth 20452.94 54,266,275 km
141 LD
1924-03-17 Earth 20006.28 49,737,226 km
129 LD
1921-08-16 Earth 16766.19 40,042,571 km
104 LD
1913-02-23 Earth 23912.65 61,587,057 km
160 LD
1910-07-14 Earth 11874.80 30,839,703 km
80.2 LD
1907-10-12 Earth 24319.89 70,876,738 km
184 LD
1902-02-04 Earth 26461.07 71,364,901 km
186 LD

Looked up from NASA's NeoWs API and cached — last refreshed 2026-09-27T03:11:28.665530+00:00.