The potentially dangerous asteroid 2025 PM will pass close to Earth on August 17.

A potentially dangerous asteroid 2025 PM with a diameter of about 50 meters will pass close to Earth on August 17. This was announced on August 15 in the Telegram channel of the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy at the Institute of Space Research (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

At the minimum distance from the planet, the object will be about twice as far away as the Moon's orbit. A close flyby makes a celestial body potentially dangerous: objects approaching the Earth at a distance of less than 10 lunar orbits belong to this category.

2025 PM is one of the largest asteroids that have recently approached Earth at a distance of less than a million kilometers. Another object of comparable size is expected only at the end of September.

The asteroid was discovered on August 1 and has so far been very little studied. It shows no signs of cometary activity and is most likely a block of rock without volatiles. The 2025 PM flight will take place on August 17 at 12:03 Moscow time. The probability of an asteroid being captured by the Earth is minimal and possible only if it collides with another celestial body, which could change its trajectory or speed.

On August 2, Harvard astrophysicist Loeb announced that a potentially dangerous interstellar object 3I/ATLAS could reach Earth by the end of 2025. The scientist assumed that it would reach Earth between November 21 and December 5, 2025.

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