How Big (Small) Things In Space Really Are

Click on image to enlarge. This graphic showing Asteroid Itokawa and the ISS – to scale – illustrates two things: how big a small asteroid is in comparision to the ISS, and how large the ISS is in comparison to a small asteroid. Given the size of NEOs that may threaten Earth, this graphic also serves to show how much hardware one might have to put into space to deter such an object were it deemed to be an imminent threat to Earth. Asteroid 99942 (Apophis), the object of great interest to the B612 Foundation as a potential impactor, has an estimated diameter of 320 meters – somewhat smaller than Itokawa.

Historic Japanese Asteroid Data Amaze Researchers, Aviation Week

“As an Earth-crossing asteroid, Itokawa has a reasonably high statistical chance of striking Earth in a million or more years from now, JAXA says.”