'Potentially hazardous' asteroid hurtling near Earth for Super Bowl LII
Super Bowl LII will feature the underdog Philadelphia Eagles taking on the dynastic New England Patriots on Feb. 4.
Most of the so-called experts believe this is a lopsided matchup in favor of New England.
The Eagles are, after all, playing with a backup quarterback.
The Patriots opened as 5.5-point favorites, which is the heaviest a team has been favored in the Super Bowl since 2009.
For most NFL fans, they’ll be hate-watching the Patriots, hoping for another blemish on Tom Brady’s Super Bowl record.
The rest of the world, however, may be watching the skies, hoping not to become a blemish on a scorched Earth themselves.
A massive asteroid will be flying past the Earth in about two weeks, per the Daily Mail, with approximations that it will fly past the Earth on Super Bowl Sunday.
Asteroid 2002 AJ129 is both larger than the world’s tallest building and traveling nearly 15 times faster than the world’s fastest manned aircraft.
It has been classified as “potentially hazardous” by NASA.
The asteroid is traveling at speeds of 67,000 mph, and is large enough to plunge the Earth into a mini-ice age if it were to hit.
Now before you go doomsday prepping, it should be noted that the asteroid will still be quite a distance away.
The asteroid is expected to pass by at a distance around 2.6 million miles from Earth. In terms of space objects, that’s actually not that far.
By comparison, the moon is slightly less than 240,000 miles from Earth.
The official classification of “potentially hazardous” by NASA means an object is closer than 4.6 million miles from Earth.
A collision with Earth would plunge our favorite planet into a dark and cold place, with ash and soot hovering in the atmosphere for years.
Fortunately, NASA doesn’t expect the asteroid to hit the planet.
So the denizens of planet Earth can exhale for the time being.
Although, to be fair, if the Eagles end up pulling off the upset of upsets, there will probably still be quite a bit of wanton destruction in the streets .
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
