--- title: 3-Mile-Wide Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth, NASA Says description: 3200 Phaethon's size and proximity to Earth have earned it a "potentially hazardous" asteroid moniker and is expected in December 2017 canonical: https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-28T21:48:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:08.485Z article:section: Science og:title: A 3-Mile-Wide Asteroid Will Fly by Earth, Scientists Say og:description: But scientists say there's no reason to worry og:url: https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaef1a7b94d45c165/6988e728bc6cfc57923e415f/geminid-meteor-shower.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4256 og:image:height: 2394 og:image:alt: US-SPACE-METEOR SHOWER og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A 3-Mile-Wide Asteroid Will Fly by Earth, Scientists Say twitter:description: But scientists say there's no reason to worry twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaef1a7b94d45c165/6988e728bc6cfc57923e415f/geminid-meteor-shower.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A 3-Mile-Wide 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid Will Fly by Earth, Scientists Say > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: A Mysterious Object Flying Past the Sun Is Our First Confirmed Visitor From Another Solar System [Watch (HLS stream): A Mysterious Object Flying Past the Sun Is Our First Confirmed Visitor From Another Solar System](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tcQY5hrx.m3u8) (1:21)  _Published 2017-11-21. A mysterious asteroid detected speeding past the sun in October has been confirmed by scientists to be a visitor from outside our solar system, the first of its kind to be detected._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 28, 2017 9:48 PM UTC  A meteor from the Geminids meteor shower enters the Earth's atmosphere on December 12, 2009 above Southold, New York. A meteor from the Geminids meteor shower enters the Earth's atmosphere on December 12, 2009 above Southold, New York. STAN HONDA—AFP/Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 28, 2017 9:48 PM UTC A gigantic asteroid will pass by Earth in December — but scientists say the “close” encounter isn’t cause for concern. A three-mile-wide asteroid called 3200 Phaethon will come within 6.4 million miles of Earth on Dec. 16, [according to NASA](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3200;cad=1;old=0;orb=0;cov=0;log=0#cad). While that’s relatively close in space terms — for context, the rock hasn’t gotten this close to our planet since 1974, by NASA estimates — and 3200 Phaethon’s size and proximity to Earth have earned it a “potentially hazardous” asteroid moniker from the [International Astronomical Union](https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/Dangerous.html), scientists say there’s no need to plan for an impending apocalypse. Michael Mendillo, a professor of astronomy at Boston University, says that while “it would be this kind of object that would cause a catastrophic collision, should there be one,” that kind of collision is highly unlikely. “This object appears to be, at the moment, in a very stable orbit. It’s very predictable. If no other mass comes close to it, those predictions will be accurate for thousands of years,” he says, adding that there’s no indication that an external force will perturb the asteroid any time soon. Even NASA’s long-term projections, which predict that the asteroid will come within 1.8 million miles of Earth in 2093, aren’t cause for concern, Mendillo says. “If you had a more massive object, its gravitational influence might make bigger tides or things of that nature, but it doesn’t really have enough mass to affect the flow of water on Earth, and it’s far enough away that it’s not going to be in our atmosphere,” he explains. “A million miles is still pretty big.” While there’s no need to worry about a collision, Mendillo says Dec. 16 will provide a unique opportunity to glimpse an asteroid in action. If you know where to look, he says, it should be visible through only a small telescope. Amateur astronomers can also look forward to another byproduct of 3200 Phaethon: [the Geminid meteor shower](https://www.space.com/34921-geminid-meteor-shower-guide.html), an annual display that, at its peak, rains 120 meteors per hour. (This year, the peak will be from the night of Dec. 13 into the morning of Dec. 14, [according to Space.com](https://www.space.com/34921-geminid-meteor-shower-guide.html).) Unlike most meteor showers, which come from comets, scientists believe Geminid can be traced back to 3200 Phaethon — [but even NASA isn’t quite sure how that could have happened](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/lunar/phaethon.html). “This brings up just another aspect of how nature works in strange and wonderful ways,” Mendillo says. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ SOUND ] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/"},"headline":"A 3-Mile-Wide 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid Will Fly by Earth, Scientists Say","datePublished":"2017-11-28T21:48:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:04:08.485Z","description":"But scientists say there's no reason to worry","url":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/","keywords":["Space","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaef1a7b94d45c165/6988e728bc6cfc57923e415f/geminid-meteor-shower.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaef1a7b94d45c165/6988e728bc6cfc57923e415f/geminid-meteor-shower.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-SPACE-METEOR SHOWER","caption":"US-SPACE-METEOR SHOWER","creditText":"STAN HONDA—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/","name":"A 3-Mile-Wide 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid Will Fly by Earth, Scientists Say"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A Mysterious Object Flying Past the Sun Is Our First Confirmed Visitor From Another Solar System","description":"A mysterious asteroid detected speeding past the sun in October has been confirmed by scientists to be a visitor from outside our solar system, the first of its kind to be detected.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tcQY5hrx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-11-21T16:02:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tcQY5hrx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/","duration":"PT1M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5039623/3-mile-wide-asteroid-3200-phaethon/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```