Environment
Super-Large Asteroid QE2 Approaching Earth Today; Time For Doom-Mongering!
Earthquakes! Buildings knocked over! Wrangler jeans spontaneously combusting! What will (not) happen in your city?
At 4:59 EDT today, the speeding Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest approach to earth. Astronomers the planet over are craning their necks to get a look at this thing, because it's a real brute – most asteroids are less than a kilometer wide, but QE2 measures 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles). That makes it "one of the big ones," according to NASA, that would "cause global catastrophe" if it smashed into Earth.
Look, the space agency's even made a fun diagram to illustrate its unusually corpulent body, which stretches on for more than the length of nine cruise ships. Not pictured is its moon (a small percentage of asteroids have one or more moons):