Two asteroids the size of 32 George Washingtons to pass Earth on Fourth of July
Two asteroids, both around the size of 32 George Washingtons, are set to pass by the Earth on Saturday, July 4, according to NASA's asteroid tracker. And no, we're not referring to one-dollar bills, but rather the man himself. And also no, this is not referring to the American inventor and peanut pioneer George Washington Carver, but the former US president.
The asteroids have been designated 2025 MY88 and 2025 MV89, both discovered this year, as noted by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
As is unsurprising for the tendency of these articles, these asteroids being measured in terms of the founding president of the United States are set to pass by the Earth on the Fourth of July, also known as American Independence Day.
In what was rather surprising, both asteroid 2025 MY88 and its companion 2025 MV89 happen to actually be rather close in size.
The first has an estimated diameter of up to 61 meters, with the second having an estimated diameter of as much as 65 meters.
However, as is often joked about on the Internet, Americans tend to resist using the metric system. So let's put that to its most logical conclusion and literally use the founding pillar of the United States: George Washington.
America's founding president, the general who led the Continental Army to victory over the British, with the help of the French, was a towering figure in both reputation and stature. As noted by George Washington's home of Mount Vernon, now home to the George Washington Library, the president stood at a towering 1.879 meters, or six feet and two inches in freedom units.
What that means is that, after some rounding, both asteroids are around the size of 32 George Washingtons.
Fireworks are typical of the Fourth of July, and if these two asteroids hit the Earth, then fireworks would be an understatement.
The asteroids would likely not survive the actual trip through the atmosphere and wouldn't cause anything in the way of a mass extinction event. However, what they would do is explode.
This explosion is known as an airburst, and they can be incredibly loud. For example, when a much smaller asteroid, approximately 20 meters in diameter, impacted over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, the airburst resulted in a large and powerful shockwave that was felt regionally. Over 7,000 buildings in multiple cities were damaged, and over 1,000 people were injured, mostly by broken glass.
That's certainly a lot of damage, and these asteroids would likely be even worse. However, in the grand scheme of things, this would be far from an apocalyptic scenario, which would require an asteroid of around 140 meters in diameter to achieve.
Of course, given the fact that most asteroids are thought to be rubble piles with indeterminate volume, the exact size is never quite certain due to the influence of gravity, which causes it to pull in different directions, distorting their shape.
While scientists have made significant strides in the field of asteroid defense, we're not yet fully prepared. We still have some ways to go before we can declare our independence from asteroids.
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