It doesn’t sound close. But in terms of astronomy it’s very close.

A huge asteroid is hurtling through space and will miss planet Earth on Saturday by 2.4 million miles. That’s ten times the distance between us and our moon. It might seem like a great distance but NASA considers this a “potentially hazardous” category. In fact anything that is within 4.65 million miles of our orbit and is bigger than 500 feet is considered possibly dangerous.

So how big is this bad boy?

Twice the qualifying size. They say this is as big as the Eiffel Tower, which is 1,024 feet tall and 410 feet at its widest. Now imagine that’s all rock. And that it’s coming at 14,000 miles an hour. Because, well, it is.

Large planetoid in empty space
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Maybe we can put this into Jersey terms for you.

The tallest building in New Jersey is 99 Hudson Street in Jersey City. It stands 79 stories and 900 feet. This asteroid is bigger.

This speeding hulk, named Asteroid 4660 Nereus, is as big as the Trenton Makes Bridge is long.

It’s about as big as some of the massive beaches at Wildwood are wide.

You could stack four High Point Monuments on top of each other and this asteroid will still be bigger than that.

Getting the picture now?

Here’s another way to size it up. Imagine hitting one over the wall to deep center field at TD Bank Ballpark where the Somerset Patriots play. It would be two of those combined and you’d still be short by 200 feet.

A final Jersey way of looking at this beast. This giant asteroid is so big you would have to stack 15 of Margate’s Lucy The Elephants on top of each other to match its size.

Oh, but do you need a less scary Jersey way of looking at this asteroid that will come close but not hit us? It’s smaller than the rock Big Joe Henry found in his shoe last week.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.
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