potentially hazardous object

English

Alternative forms

• PHO (initialism)

Noun

potentially hazardous object (plural potentially hazardous objects)

1. (astronomy) A near-Earth asteroid or comet with an orbit such that it has the potential to make close approaches to the Earth and is of a size large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact.

Hypernyms

• near-Earth object (NEO)

Coordinate terms

• near-Earth asteroid (NEA)
• near-Earth comet (NEC)