While the asteroid is traveling too far to pose any risk to the Earth, a possible impact event with it could become a worldwide catastrophe.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’d switch, but I’ve been on the Capy system my whole life, and it’s just much more intuitive for me. Everyone knows how long a Capybara is. How fucking long a meter is? Beats the fuck out of me, maybe a half cap?

    • unoriginalsin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And we’ll misapply it as well. The asteroid isn’t the size of 1000 capybaras, it’s as wide as 1000 capybaras lined up. Assuming it’s roughly spherical, it’s actually closer to the size of 524,000,000 capybaras.

      • jarfil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Asteroids can be wildly non-spherical though, in shapes way different than capybara non-sphericalities, so it’s not only misapplied but likely also nonsensical… unless, it’s a giant capybara shaped asteroid.

        • unoriginalsin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          True, but we’re only given the one measurement and can only assume it to be true and accurate. Even if it is non-spherical, so long as the “diameter” given is a true average we can treat it as spherical for this purpose. And, the 1000 capybaras “measurement” is still of by many orders of magnitude.

    • Neto@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Is 1,000 capybaras equal to 10,000 guinea pigs or is it 99,729.372456 guinea pigs? I’m bad at conversions.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The Jerusalem Post

      Look I think the joke is as funny as anyone else but the “unit” is an animal most of the Americans its meant to lampoon most likely wouldn’t have even heard of.