An asteroid bigger than the empire state building will come close to Earth next week

Question

It won't pose any threat but a huge asteroid bigger than the size of the Empire State Building will pass by Earth in a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Answer 1

This is true! The asteroid is named 2020 XR and passed over Earth Dec. 4 2024. It is roughly 1,177 feet, with the Empire State Building at 1,250 feet.

https://www.spacereference.org/asteroid/2020-xr

Comments

This is a good fact-check! Your source is especially helpful because it includes very informative diagrams and even a size-rendering to get a more accurate sense of the asteroid's scale. It should be noted that Space Reference is an open-source project ( https://www.spacereference.org/ ), meaning that anyone can add to or modify their databases regardless of credibility. It would be good to corroborate sources from this site with sources from other sites (for example, this page from the European Space Agency's official website on the same asteroid ( https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/12/Close_approach_of_asteroid_2020_XR ).

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This is a cool source and helps prove your fact-check very well. I'd be interested if you were to write just a quick blurb summarizing some of the data on there because there is a lot of very scientific language and a lot of numbers to synthesize, so just breaking it down a little bit would really strengthen your comment. But, with that said, you answered the claim very well and very up-front and provided an awesome source. Nice!