Re: How long is a football field?
"Discovered just last week, NE19 is said to be the size of a football field"
Yeah, this is really starting to annoy me. When they mention a new asteroid discovered in a safe orbit, you always get a full description, ie: "The asteroid now known as 'Burbank' is a potato-shaped asteroid 380 meters in length, and 120 meters at its widest width."
Whereas, the 'Earth threatening' ones only get partial measurements like these:
linear - '54 meters long', What? Snakes are long, sticks are long, poles are long. Are aliens are chucking big spears at us? Or worse:
'54 meters across' Across implies a width that's small compared to its length, llike 'the road is forty meters across', or 'To fit through the isthmus canal, a ship can be no more than 50 meters across." Jumping javelins! The aliens are chucking Mahoosive spears at us!
Then we gret the ones like in this article:
2 dimensional - 'The size of a football field', or 'the size of Manhattan', or 'as big as a 40 hectare field' Gives the impression that Galactus sized aliens are flicking playing cards at us, no real harm, unless one that hits doesn't stick deep enough and falls over on something important.
But seriously, can't they just give the size in estimated tonnage? It might be inaccurate, but it''d give a better mental picture of what's whizzing around out there.