An asteroid the size of around eight Taylor Swifts is set to pass the Earth on Tuesday, February 6, according to NASA's asteroid tracker.
The asteroid in question has been designated as 2024 BT3, according to the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Its orbit will put the asteroid, or rather "Asteroid (Taylor's Version)," far away from the Earth and its celebrated pop music icon with which this article chooses to measure it. And yes, this arguably means we are in the asteroid era.
It's me, hi, I'm the asteroid, it's me: How big is the asteroid coming toward Earth in 2024?
According to estimates from NASA's Eyes on Asteroids tool, asteroid 2024 BT3 is approximately 14.8 meters in diameter.
Now, for a very timely comparison, let's compare it to one of the most successful and influential figures in music today, the one and only Taylor Swift. Yes, really.
Swift's height is a matter of fierce debate among many Swifties, with some even doing detailed breakdowns of pictures of the "Shake it Off" sensation to try to deduce just how tall she really is.
Look what you made me do: How tall is Taylor Swift?
What is known is that Taylor Swift is certainly taller than average. In a 2008 profile in Entertainment Weekly, it was stated that she was 5 foot 11, while in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair, she said she was 5 foot 10. But for the sake of this article, we will overlook any possible "Blank Space" or the assumption that perhaps "Everything Has Changed" with her height and go with a height of 5 foot 11.
Now, converting that into the metric system for the millions of non-US-based Swifties out there, we can round that to around 1.8 meters, which unfortunately is far below the 1.989 meters we'd have liked to reference the 1989 album.
But back to asteroids.
With this calculation in mind, asteroid 2024 BT3 is around the size of eight Taylor Swifts all stacked on top of one another. Unless they were wearing high heels, in which case this math gets a lot more complicated and we risk breaking the Internet.
I knew you were trouble when you flew past the Earth: Is an asteroid going to hit us in 2024?
All jokes and references to Taylor Swift aside, yes, it is possible an asteroid could hit the Earth this year. In fact, one already has, when an asteroid the size of around two ducks impacted Germany back in January.
That asteroid burnt up as a fireball harmlessly though, meaning it had less of an impact than the Eras tour did on the music industry.
At this asteroid's size, likely, this asteroid would only cause any damage in your "Wildest Dreams."
"All Too Well": Can we stop an asteroid from hitting the Earth?
Scientists have developed a way to hopefully stop an asteroid from hitting the Earth, as evidenced in NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission, which managed to change an asteroid's orbit without leaving any "Bad Blood."
But does that mean we're "Untouchable" for any asteroids in the future?
Unfortunately, we're not exactly "Out of the Woods" yet.
We still need to worry about groups of asteroids, such as a hypothetical group of "Fifteen" of them that could come all at once, since we don't exactly have enough DART spacecraft stocked up. Secondly, we need to hope it's one we saw coming and not one that snuck up behind us hidden by the Sun's glare.
So sadly, as much as we would like to be Fearless in the face of asteroids, "I'd lie" if I said we were perfectly safe from any future calamities.
But right now, let us enjoy a lack of worry for any asteroids making us Red with panic.