An asteroid the size of 59 Avi Loebs is set to pass the Earth on Wednesday, August 27, according to NASA's asteroid tracker.
The asteroid in question has been designated as 2025 PM2 and is one of three asteroids set to pass the Earth that day, according to the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist who heads the Institute for Theory and Computation and who is one of the leading figures in mainstream science advocating for SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) efforts, kindly provided his measurements for use in this article during an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life (and asteroids): How big is asteroid 2025 PM2?
Asteroid PM2 has a diameter ranging between 45 meters and 100 meters in diameter.
To put that in perspective, lets use a far more interesting tool of measurement: renowned scientist and prolific author Avi Loeb.
In a recent interview with the Post on the newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, Loeb mentioned that for asteroids around 100 meters or more in diameter, something like a football field is a more accurate comparison. However, when this reporter pointed out that it is far more humorous to say something like "1,000 hamsters," Loeb laughed and then agreed to be used himself as a metric.
Confirming he had just gone to see the doctor a few days prior to the interview and thus in possession of accurate measurements, Loeb gave his height as being 1.7 meters.
If we assume asteroid 2025 PM2 is at its maximum possible diameter of 100 meters, that would mean it is the size of around 59 Avi Loebs all standing on top of one another.
Now, in terms of speed, asteroid 2025 PM2 is barreling forward at a pace of 18.50 kilometers per second. While we do not know how fast Loeb can run - this reporter forgot to ask - it can be safely assumed that it is not nearly as fast - though again, we aren't sure, and without evidence, one could imagine the 63-year-old academic as being just as fast as some accumulation of cosmic dust floating through space.
However, it should be noted that other asteroids are set to pass the Earth on the same day. It only made sense thematically that we also listed their sizes using other scientists as metrics.
- Asteroid 2025 QC1 is as much as 36 meters in diameter, or the size of almost 21 Albert Einsteins - it is unclear if the hair factors into that equation.
- Asteroid 2025 QX4 is as much as 40 meters in diameter, or the size of almost 22 J. Robert Oppenheimers.
The First Sign of Intelligent Life (and asteroids): What would happen if asteroid 2025 PM2 hit the Earth?
At 100 meters in diameter, asteroid 2025 PM2 falls short of being a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA). However, it is far larger than the 20 meters that impacted Earth in 2013.
That impact, which struck above Chelyabinsk, Russia, saw over 7,000 buildings damaged in multiple cities, and over 1,000 people injured, mostly by broken glass.
At 100 meters, asteroid 2025 PM2 could cause a lot more damage than that.
But humanity is well on its way to being ready for such an eventuality, such as through planetary defense methods like NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission's kinetic deflection method.
But as Loeb wrote regarding the possibility of advanced alien life interacting with Earth, humanity is nowhere near prepared to deal with a potential hostile encounter.