An asteroid the size of 12 and a half fully grown gorillas is set to pass the Earth on Wednesday, May 21, in a very close flyby, according to NASA's asteroid tracker.
The asteroid in question was discovered only this year and has been dubbed 2025 KF, as noted by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
While the asteroid won't impact the Earth, its current calculated trajectory will bring it far closer than most other near-Earth objects (NEOs) that pass by our planet.
No monkey business: How big is the asteroid passing Earth?
Asteroids are usually thought of as being massive, solid rocks floating through space, coupled with the threat of potentially slamming into an unsuspecting and defenseless planet. And asteroid 2025 KF is certainly big - relative to humans, at least. However, in terms of other asteroids, they are a bit smaller, with their estimated diameter being as much as 23 meters.
To put that in a more human perspective, let's take a look at one of the closest relatives of humanity: gorillas.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the average gorilla can grow to as much as six feet in height, or 1.8 meters when converted to the metric system and rounded down.
So if we divide 23 by 1.8, we get approximately 12.5. With that in mind, we can confidently say that asteroid 2025 KF is the size of around 12 and a half fully-grown gorillas.
Or is it?
While asteroids are often thought of as big, solid rocks, that isn't always the case. Many asteroids are actually what are known as rubble piles, which are big collections of smaller rocks and dust held together by gravity. These are no less dangerous than other asteroids - such a huge, concentrated amount of rubble impacting a planet can still be very destructive. However, it does mean that the actual size of an asteroid is flexible.
When a rubble pile asteroid passes by a sufficient source of gravity, such as a planet or star, the pull of gravity will cause the rubble to shift, with some parts stretching out and changing shape. This doesn't impact the volume of the asteroid, which can contain empty pockets inside, but it does change the total length and width. So who knows if it will stay the same size for long? We may need more gorillas.
100 gorillas vs one asteroid? How much damage would asteroid 2025 KF cause if it hit the Earth?
As far as asteroids go, 2025 KF is on the smaller size. Generally speaking, most asteroids burn up in Earth's atmosphere upon impact. Should 2025 KF actually impact the Earth, the result would likely be a very loud airburst explosion, but not one that should pose significant danger, if any, to the planet.
Compare that to the power of a gorilla. These huge, muscled primates are very strong, thought to be as much as nine times stronger than even the most trained of humans, not to mention having a bite force so strong that it puts lions to shame.
In a one-on-one fight, not many animals would easily match up to the strength of a gorilla - humans included.
Lately, the Internet has been abuzz with the debate of 100 men versus one gorilla, but let's take that scenario and alter it for our purposes: 100 gorillas versus one asteroid.
But this isn't really a debate; an asteroid would absolutely destroy 100 gorillas.
Luckily, there isn't any danger of an asteroid impact any time soon, and while asteroid 2025 KF is going to fly closer to the Earth than most other asteroids, at just around 111,000 kilometers away, it still doesn't pose any risk of hitting the Earth.
But since an asteroid impact still has the potential to be a global catastrophe, scientists have been working hard to develop countermeasures, both in terms of monitoring asteroids and finding ways to avert an impact scenario.
We're not there yet, but we're getting closer, showing that while 100 gorillas can't do anything against an asteroid, humans have a much better matchup.