PASADENA, USA, Oct. 23, 2026 - A house-sized visitor is coming back. The asteroid 2010 VQ, about 10 metres across,^[1] will sweep past Earth at 4.56 lunar distances on 12 December 2026,^[2] its next close approach.^[3] It is one of the near-Earth asteroids on the long-term impact monitoring list,^[4] with a cumulative impact chance of about 1 in 629.^[5] That sounds alarming, but the asteroid rates 0 on the Torino scale^[6] and -4.41 on the Palermo scale,^[7] and no impact is predicted.^[8] 2010 VQ goes round the Sun every 0.80 years,^[9] and right now it shines at magnitude 27.2,^[10] far too faint to see without a large telescope. The same day, a second small asteroid, 2025 XN6, passes at 6.91 lunar distances.^[11] Space Nugget. A lunar distance is the average distance between Earth and the Moon, about 384,000 kilometres, so 4.6 lunar distances is well beyond the Moon's orbit. Asteroids join impact-watch lists when their orbits are not yet known precisely enough to rule out a future collision; each new observation narrows the possibilities, and most are eventually cleared.