Jingszo !

China is targeting a small non-threatening near-Earth asteroid for a daring attempt to run into it at high speeds and move it off its course. The Chinese asteroid deflection test could happen as early as 2027, in a project similar to NASA’s recent DART mission.

Asteroid 2015 XF261 is around 98 feet wide (30 meters) and had a recent encounter with Earth when it zipped past our planet at a distance of 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) on Tuesday, July 9. The near-Earth asteroid routinely passes by the planet twice a year, with the next flyby on February 21, 2025.

Of the 31,000 near-Earth asteroids that have been discovered, about 2,300 are considered potentially hazardous by NASA. These are asteroids that come within 30 million miles of our planet.