2 Asteroids the Size of ’32 George Washingtons’ to Fly by Earth on Independence Day
The Universe is offering up some additional sky attractions for us to enjoy this July 4th!
Just in time for Independence Day, two asteroids, each roughly 120 feet in diameter, will safely pass by Earth.
In a fun homage to this American holiday, The Jerusalem Post noted that these asteroids are approximately the size of 32 times the height of George Washington, which provides a relatable scale for their size as well as a fun way to mark the day.
The asteroids have been designated 2025 MY88 and 2025 MV89, both discovered this year, as noted by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
As is unsurprising for the tendency of these articles, these asteroids being measured in terms of the founding president of the United States are set to pass by the Earth on the Fourth of July, also known as American Independence Day.
In what was rather surprising, both asteroid 2025 MY88 and its companion 2025 MV89 happen to actually be rather close in size.
The first has an estimated diameter of up to 61 meters, with the second having an estimated diameter of as much as 65 meters.
New unit of measurement just dropped:
Two asteroids the size of 32 George Washingtons to pass Earth on Fourth of July – NASA https://t.co/3KoihHbl43— Alex Núñez (@Noonz) July 4, 2025
In even more interesting space news, an interstellar object was recently detected entering our solar system.
For only the third time, astronomers have found something passing through our solar system that came from outside the solar system.
This interstellar object, known as 3I/ATLAS, is still pretty far from the sun, currently located between the orbits of the asteroid belt and Jupiter but heading toward the inner solar system.
“This thing is traveling pretty fast” said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Relative to the sun, it is currently moving at about 130,000 miles per hour and it will continue to accelerate as the sun’s gravity pulls on it.
The object is a comet that is coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. It is slated to make its closet approach to the Sun this fall.
“These things take millions of years to go from one stellar neighborhood to another, so this thing has likely been traveling through space for hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years,” Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, said Thursday. “We don’t know, and so we can’t predict which star it came from.”
The newest visitor is 416 million miles from the sun, out near Jupiter, and heading this way at a blistering 37 miles per second.
NASA said the comet will make its closest approach to the sun in late October, scooting between the orbits of Mars and Earth — but closer to the red planet than Earth at a safe 150 million miles away.
Astronomers around the world are monitoring the icy snowball that’s been officially designated as 3I/Atlas to determine its size and shape. Chodas told The Associated Press there have been more than 100 observations since its discovery, with preliminary reports of a tail and a cloud of gas and dust around the comet’s nucleus.
NASA has discovered an interstellar comet that's wandered into our backyard. It spotted the object with the sky-surveying Atlas telescope in Chile earlier this week, and has confirmed it was a comet from another star system. https://t.co/KqqrBFBQ9Y
— 2 News Nevada (@KTVN) July 4, 2025
So it looks like the Universe is offering up some additional sky attractions for us to enjoy this July 4th!
Image by perplexity.ai.
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Comments
If the strange comet from Sagittarius has been traveling for millions of years to get here, then maybe worm holes in the universe don’t exist … bummer!
I’ve always looked at wormholes the same way as the subway projects I was taxed to build — they certainly may exist, but if none of them come out to our neck of the woods, they may as well not.
I wonder if Judge Moss’s new federally protected class of alien asylum seekers include the aliens we detect trying to illegally cross into our solar system?
If Trump is for it Moss is against it and vice versa,
32 George Washingtons… still beats metric
“these asteroids are approximately the size of 32 times the height of George Washington”
Oh! I thought we were talking about George Washington the aircraft carrier!
I was thinking the bridge, but that will work too.
For a second, I thought they were speaking about the greenback and then maybe the monument. Pardon my senility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk Washington’s Dream
As Brad Neely noted: “Washington, Washington, 6 foot 4, weighs a f____ing ton!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6OOuPI5c0&list=RDqv6OOuPI5c0&start_radio=1
But how many Smoots?
Is there no end to what Trump is capable of organising? 😂
Freedom can not be measured in metric units.
I suppose if these asteroids had collided with earth, and caused damage, NASA would have blamed Trump! One of their programs was insufficiently funded.
“In even more interesting space news, an interstellar object was recently detected entering our solar system.”
Uh-Oh– this object could be an terrestrial visitor. If aliens are monitoring our signals and managed to decipher (say) the BBC, they would rapidly conclude earth has no intelligent life, at least in the sense of beings capable of rational thought. Even worse if they could read the New York Times, they might even attack! Such was the plot from the 1951 movie: “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
BTW here is something fascinating about that movie which is not generally known. The equations of Professor Barnhardt’s ( an obvious Einstein character) blackboard are real. The dialogue is pretty accurate. Yep “variation of parameters” is a technique used to solve differential equations. Moreover,
“The equations on the blackboard were developed and written by Prof. Samuel Herrick of UCLA. He was hired by 20th Century for the then-sizeable sum of $75 per day to come up with something for the blackboard.” From the website “Mathematical Fiction.” A comment by Peter Armstrong who references the book: “Lab Coats in Hollywood.”
Yes indeed Herrick invented the phrase and the subject of “Astrodynamics.” His book, which I have, is the seminal work on the subject. NASA uses more computer-based techniques where Herrick’s work is analytical and fundamental. He gives us the equations for real-life space travel. Neat stuff for movie and science fiction fans.
But what if these asteroids hit Iran and specifically its remaining nuke program? 🤔🤨🤯
You know, if a sublight civilization with a lot of patience wanted to send probes to several solar systems, it would make sense to pack a whomping chunk of ice and rock around it so micrometeorites wouldn’t hurt it, and by making a close approach to the first system, it can maximize the gravity boost by thrusting at the nearest approach. and lining up for the second solar system to scan. Has anybody drawn a line backwards to see where it came from, or forwards to see where it is going?
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