van Baalen is a mid-sized asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the main portion of the asteroid belt. NASA JPL has not classified van Baalen as potentially hazardous because its orbit does not bring it close to Earth.
van Baalen orbits the sun every 1,680 days (4.60 years), coming as close as 2.67 AU and reaching as far as 2.87 AU from the sun. van Baalen is about 5.3 kilometers in diameter, making it larger than 99% of asteroids, comparable in size to the San Francisco Bay.
van Baalen's orbit is 1.65 AU from Earth's orbit at its closest point. This means that there is an extremely wide berth between this asteroid and Earth at all times.
Orbital simulations conducted by NASA JPL's CNEOS do not show any close approaches to Earth.
van Baalen's orbit is determined by observations dating back to Nov. 11, 1990. It was last officially observed on Jan. 14, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center records 1,967 observations used to determine its orbit.
The position of van Baalen is indicated by a ◯ pink circle. Note that the object may not be in your current field of view. Use the controls below to adjust position, location, and time.
The above comparison is an artistic rendering that uses available data on the diameter of van Baalen to create an approximate landscape rendering with Mount Everest in the background. This approximation is built for full-resolution desktop browsers. Shape, color, and texture of asteroid are imagined.