The meteor was one yard in diameter, about the size of an exercise ball, when it entered the atmosphere over eastern Pennsylvania, said Cooke.

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The crater was much too large for his team to study in detail: ninety miles in diameter, roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.

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Its leafy green head is usually 1-2 inches in diameter, roughly the size of a golf ball, but each sprout packs a potent punch of contrasting flavors.

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Forecasters warned of a "particularly dangerous situation, " with ominous language about strong tornadoes and hail the size of grapefruits 4 inches in diameter.

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From the size of this drop, they can deduce the diameter of the planet.

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"They're smaller than the diameter of a human hair, less than 100 microns in size, " explains Dr Lane.

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At some 2.7 kms in diameter (or some nine Queen Elizabeth 2 ship-lengths in size), 1998 QE2 is due to make its latest closest approach to earth at 1:59 Pacific Daylight Time (4:59 EDT) today.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

Or so says David Eichler, lead author of a forthcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters paper positing that a sun-grazing comet roughly the size of Hale-Bopp (with a nucleus some 30 kms in diameter), could trigger cosmic ray-generating shockwaves large enough to initiate a global electromagnetic Armageddon.

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