Massive Asteroid Headed Toward Earth! How to Know If the Risk Is Real
Heard about the newly discovered, potentially dangerous asteroid heading our way? Few months go by without ominous asteroids in the tabloid headlines. Spoiler alert: There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.
In the past week, news outlets around the world have been reviving a clickbait trope yet again about an asteroid the size of a skyscraper “hurtling towards Earth.” Most of these refer to newfound asteroid 2022 RM4, which is a big space rock coming closer to our planet than other asteroids its size. But it will never come anywhere near our planet in any practical sense.
It’s been the same story plenty of other times, including coverage of a different asteroid in January 2020, when headlines screamed of a “gigantic” asteroid the size of the Empire State Building speeding “towards Earth.”
At least that’s how it was reported at the time by Sputnik, the news site funded by the Russian government. The reality, as the article said after the scary headline, was that asteroid 2019 UO would pass us safely at a distance of 2,808,194 miles (4,519,351 kilometers). That’s almost 12 times farther away than the moon. I scarcely think of the moon, let alone