1y ago

Giant asteroid the size of 1,000 capybaras to pass Earth Tuesday - NASA

www.jpost.com Giant asteroid the size of 1,000 capybaras to pass Earth Tuesday - NASA

Asteroid 349507 (2008 QY) is around 1.2 kilometers in diameter, or around 1,000 capybaras – large enough that an impact event (which won't happen now) could be a worldwide catastrophe.

While the asteroid is traveling too far to pose any risk to the Earth, a possible impact event with it could become a worldwide catastrophe.

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101 comments

reminds me of an article where the area of a solar array was measured in units of Olympic swimming pools....
just why?
- Because humans are notorious for not being able to estimate area and volume. Pretty much anything but length. People can visualize an Olympic swimming pool. They cannot visualize an acre or hectare.
  But mostly, it's because units are about communicating. They need to provide understanding to the user. That's why feet and inches are so useful as units. They're real to everyone.
  Let me give you an example.
  DC fast chargers operate at 250 kW. I can do all kinds of physics with that number. How long it would take to boil a cubic meter of water. How fast can that accelerate a rock. All the things.
  That's not very helpful though. It doesn't tell me anything real in my life.
  Now, I'll tell you that that number will trip the main breaker of 5 typical houses. That's better, but I don't really know how much a house is.
  What I do know is how hot an oven is when running on full blast.
  250 kW is more than 80 ovens running on full blast.
  That's about as good an intuitive understanding of that number as I can get.
  
  idk, maybe use units of famous mountains for asteroids instead of rodents? an asteroid a quarter the size of mt everest, for example.
  yeah, people may not like SI units as much as i do but that doesn't mean whatever you pick is an improvement.
  
  I don't know how big mount Everest is. How big a mountain is is even ill defined in geography.
  They probably should have used house cats, but capybaras are unique, and current journalism is about "viral" attention.
  I also hope you don't think that 1k capybaras are one quarter the size of Everest.
  Aside: SI units are amazing. Just only necessary for scientific use (and legal). On a day to day basis, you need to communicate. That's the purpose.
  
  i only have had outdoor cats so the house cat unit is meaningless to me. there really should be standardized international unit that everyone agrees to measure things in. using a house cat is as good as using King Charles forearm
  
  Lol. :)
  Anything that gets measured in housecats doesn't need 12 digits of precision.
  Forearms are cubits. That's also a great unit of measurement if you don't need precision.

101 comments