>is currently on path to strike the planet in early November.
And it will do not a damn thing, really.
Our atmosphere exists to protect us from the majority of space shits that we've been brainwashed into thinking will devastate our entire planet.
So, piss off with your fear porn
>however OP says, "The object has lost nearly a third of it’s mass since it was discovered in 2017"
>which would make it a comet
Bro… Do you even Space Force???
The difference between a comet and asteroid isn't size. It's the type of orbit. Comets have elliptical orbits and travel through varying voltage potential between outer outer space, and inner outer space. Asteroids are primarily restricted to the region between Jupiter and Mars. However, when one looks at the "official definitions", there are numerous flaws, primarily because of the flawed ideologies at the foundation of the respective field of study.
Comets were traditionally thought to be dirty snowball. We found out that couldn't be further from the truth, as most are solid rock. Asteroids are supposedly "leftovers" from the supposed formation of the solar system. Which I can't even begin to go into how flawed that premise is, because I'll just start cussing at how retarded humanity has been for believing such ridiculous bull shit without a shred of fucking evidence, but still somehow calling it "science". But whatever. Let's just say that asteroids and comets are both space rocks, and size does little to differentiate between the two. Similarly, there isn't much difference between the space rocks we call "terrestrial planets" and the ones we call "moons". Technically, there is much moar differences between the gas giant "planets" and the terrestrial "planets". But again. Whatever. About the only thing space "science" has really done for humanity is give things we know nothing about "proper names". So, everybody can confuse TF out of things while pretending to sound smart about knowing what silly name to call imaginary objects "scientists" made up in a weak AF attempt to explain shit they know nothing about, but people are too stupid to disprove, so we all just get forced into throwing money at it endlessly to pretend like we all know piss about shit about space when some poor unsuspecting child dares to ask an "adult" a legitimate question about WTF we're all doing on a giant rock floating around in the middle of space.