Headlines about a “concerning” asteroid that will “skim” Earth on Saturday are not giving us an accurate picture

This post was originally published on this site

“NASA says huge, ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid will break into Earth’s orbit next week” reads a headline from The Hill posted on December 1st. “ROCKY HORROR: Giant asteroid will skim Earth’s orbit tomorrow in hair-raising near miss” reads another headline posted on December 9th in The Sun (UK). These are some of the many headlines describing 4660 Nereus, an asteroid that is around 1,083-feet long (330-meter), will come within 2.4 million miles (3.9 million km) of Earth, still about 10 times farther away than the moon.