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NASA is currently tracking on route to enter Earth's orbit, and it's estimated to be worth more than $5 billion.

The asteroid is dubbed "potentially dangerous," as is any space rock or comet that comes within the 4.65 million miles of Earth. The asteroid is dubbed 4660 Nereus, and while it is categorized as a "potentially hazardous" object, it will safely pass by Earth. The asteroid has a diameter of 1,085 feet and will break into Earth's orbit at a speed of 14,700 mph on Saturday, December 11, marking the closest the asteroid has come to Earth within 20 years.

When 4660 Nereus passes by Earth, it will be at a distance of 2.4 million miles, which is around 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon (238,855 miles). While 2.4 million miles sounds like an enormous distance when speaking in astronomical terms, it's quite small. According to the Asterank database that is currently tracking more than 60,000 asteroids, 4660 Nereus is estimated to contain $4.71 billion worth of nickel, iron, and cobalt.

For the entire duration of human existence, we have been trying to make sense of the planet we have been living on, called Earth.

Humans have come quite far in understanding the small blue planet we call home, and the solar system it resides in, but there is still a lot of questions that need answers. Researchers have discovered some quite outrageous facts about Earth throughout their research, and some of these discoveries have broken previously established understandings of our planet.

Below you will find five facts about Earth that aren't common knowledge, and some of them may even break preconceived ideas that teachers established during your early schooling years.

Reports indicate that there has been several eruptions on the surface of the Sun, and that a large magnetic filament has exploded.

Sunspot activity.

According to Spaceweather.com, the Sun featured eruptive activity on its departing southern limb, with a northern coronal hole passing centrally. The eruptive activity that was seen in the Sun's southern hemisphere that was departing can be attributed to sunspots that caused an M-class flare and plasma ejecta to be launched into space. The charged particles from the sunspot eruptive activity are not on track to collide with Earth.

A company is trying to create a faster and cheaper method of putting satellites in orbit, and the design the company has gone with literally flings satellites.

Most companies that are looking to get satellites into orbit decide to use rockets, which is an extremely expensive and costly environmental process. While the cost of launching a rocket was dramatically reduced with the introduction of reusable rockets, the expense of a launch is still very high. For these aforementioned reasons, California-based spaceflight startup SpinLaunch is currently testing out a different method that involves spinning satellites at very high speeds and releasing them through a small chute towards space.

On October 22, SpinLaunch tested its "suborbital accelerator", which measures in at 165 feet, taller than the Statue of Liberty, by spinning a 10-foot-long projectile to speeds of "many thousands of miles an hour," according to SpinLaunch's CEO Jonathan Yaney. After gaining extreme speeds, the projectile was released out of the barrel and ascended to "tens of thousands of feet." SpinLaunch plans on conducting around thirty more test flights within the next eight months at its suborbital accelerator in New Mexico.

MSI is preparing a new fleet of next-gen gaming laptops that will be revealed during CES 2022 which kicks off on January 4, 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada. MSI's new Raider GE66/GE76 and Stealth GS66 gaming laptops have been teased with Intel and NVIDIA's latest chips.

The ultra-premium gaming laptop market will have the MSI Raider GE76, which will offer a large 17-inch display, and a flagship Intel Core i9-12900HK processor. We also have a hefty 64GB of RAM, 2TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD storage, and a flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (with 16GB of GDDR6 memory) graphics card.

How much is that going to cost you? Only 4768 EUR or around $5400.

AOC has launched its new G4309VX/D gaming monitor, boasting a native 4K resolution and super-slick 144Hz refresh rate all running over its included HDMI 2.1 connectivity.

The new AOC G4309VX/D has debuted in China with a VA panel offering up to 4000:1 contrast ratio, 720 nits of brightness in SDR mode, and 1100 nits of brightness in HDR thanks to it having VESA DisplayHDR 1000 certification. AOC has quantum dot coating and 100% sRGB, with 95% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage.

But this is all for gamers... so we have the native 4K res, 144Hz refresh rate, and HDMI 2.1 connectivity. This means the AOC G4309VX/D gaming monitor will work on your PC as long as you've got a new AMD RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series GPU or NVIDIA Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series GPU -- or alternatively, a next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 or Microsoft Xbox Series X/S console.

STALKER was very similar to Crysis back in the Golden Age of PC gaming, where the same "can it run Crysis" jokes could be used for "can it run STALKER" -- but now we have STALKER 2.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl looks to require a hefty amount of SSD storage space, with 180GB required on the Microsoft next-gen Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. We already know that the PC version of STALKER 2 will require 150GB of storage, with developer GSC Game World detailing the PC system requirements on Steam.

We should expect some changes of the requirements (not just PC hardware required) but also storage space as we lead into the launch of STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl on April 28, 2022, for the PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles.

A gamer in Soest, Germany could've been burned alive due to lack of awareness while he was playing PlayStation.

According to reports from German newspaper Soester Anzeiger, a man in Soest, Germany could've died from smoke inhalation and possibly burned down an entire apartment building because he was paying too much attention to a gaming session.

Reports say the German gamer was surprised when the fire department showed up in his smoke-filled apartment on reports of a possible fire. The man had been so engrossed in his PlayStation gaming session that he didn't notice the beeping smoke alarms, nor did he see the thick plumes of smoke that had filled the apartment from a burning pan of spaghetti sauce.

Halo Infinite's full worldwide unlock timings have been announced by 343 Industries--here's when you can play the campaign.

Halo Infinite's campaign is just two days away from release, but fans will have to wait until the actual day of December 8 to play it. 343i has confirmed Halo Infinite will not have a midnight launch the night before official release similar to other Bungie-era Halo games. The good news is the campaign is releasing simultaneously across the globe at the same time.

Check below for exact times per specific region:

The armor lockers in Halo Infinite's campaign reportedly do not feature actual armor pieces that can be used in PVP customization.

Gamers can find Spartan armor caches strewn across Halo Infinite's campaign map that apparently don't have armor in them. These lockers are part of Infinite's myriad of unlocks and collectibles which include equipment upgrades and Easter Eggs.

That's according to Forbes' Paul Tassi, who discovered the armor lockers only doled out cosmetics and not actual armor pieces that can be equipped and used in multiplayer. Reports also say the campaign does not have an unlockable armor core to be used in multiplayer. Tassi received an early copy of Halo Infinite for review and clarified the reports on Reddit:

Final Fantasy XIV's new Endwalker expansion is out now in early access, but gamers are having lots of trouble actually playing. Square Enix has offered up free game time as an apology.

Right now Final Fantasy XIV's game servers simply can't keep up with demand. Everyone wants to play the new Endwalker expansion and the online networks are just filling up too fast, leading to long login waiting queues and maxed-out worlds. The developers are now giving out 7 days of free game time as an apology to all subscribed users, and more time could be offered if the issues continue, the team says.

Warzone testers plan to strike until Activision reverses its decision to fire multiple QA testers.

Last week, Activision fired around a dozen quality assurance testers, roughly 1/3 of its QA team, at one of its studios Raven Software. These workers were under contract--meaning they are not employees, do not get benefits or healthcare, and can be cut at any time--and their emotional stories of termination were told on Twitter by onlookers and the workers themselves, who had moved to Madison, Wisconsin and are now out of a job.

Now the remaining QA testers are planning a collective strike in protest, and demand that Activision hires their co-workers back on the team. Activision tells Bloomberg that they have fired 20 contract employees but intend to make 500 of their contract team into full-time employees.

What is real? That's the question you'll be asking after watching this amazing Unreal Engine 5 tech demo.

Epic's new Unreal Engine 5 is so powerful that it may defy the limits of reality--you know, what Neo does at his day job. Is it the spoon that's bending? Or is it us? Epic Games is taking advantage of the new Matrix Resurrections film release to showcase the true might of Unreal Engine 5 with an interactive tech demo featuring Neo and other characters from the Matrix series.

The free demo is called Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience and it's available for pre-download on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

NASA has set a goal of getting a sustainable colony of humans on Mars by 2030, and in the years leading up to 2030 the space agency is collecting any relevant information that will assist them in the pursuit.

A big part of the data collection aspect of the mission is NASA's Mars rovers, Perseverance and Curiosity. Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021 and has since been inspecting the Jezero Crater for any signs of ancient microbial life. Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 and has been studying the geology of Mars for quite some time. Recently, Curiosity snapped an incredible view of the Martian landscape, check it out here.

Since the pursuit of Mars has begun there have been several notable discoveries, and some of them have happened in 2021. Below you will find five recent incredible discoveries about Mars that will assist the human civilization in creating a sustainable presence on Mars.

Nissan has recently unveiled its new lunar exploration vehicle that it has been working on with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The new prototype vehicle was unveiled last Thursday at the JAXA headquarters in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, and it features a sharp four-wheel design that has been equipped with motor control and e-4ORCE four-wheel-drive control technology. Since the surface of the Moon is covered in very fine sand, it can be quite difficult for vehicles attempting to drive on the surface to gain traction with the ground underneath them.

In the above video posted to the Nissan YouTube channel, Nissan demonstrates the difference between having its e-4ORCE technology-enabled versus having it disabled. From the video, we can see that the e-4ORCE technology can be a deciding factor when attempting to take a rover through difficult terrain, as it's designed to be a form of all-wheel precision driving that reacts to specific conditions. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

On Saturday, December 4, Mount Semeru, the tallest volcano on the island of Java, began spewing out a large plume of volcanic ash.

The deadly columns of volcanic ash drifted from the summit of the volcano high into the sky, with some of the surrounding villages being blanketed in thick ash. On top of the volcanic eruption, there was also a thunderstorm with heavy rainfall, which, when combined with the falling volcanic ash, creates lahars. The United States Geological Service says lahars are an Indonesian term, and describes them as "a moving lahar looks like a roiling slurry of wet concrete."

AccuWeather reports that at least 56 residents have been injured, at least 14 have died, and up to 60,000 people have been affected by the eruption. Deputy Regent of Lumajang, Indah Amperawati, said, "There were 41 residents who had burns due to hot lava who were evacuated at the Penanggal Health Center. We have also referred them to Bhayangkara Hospital and Suyoto Hospital." Reports indicate that the health center where most of the eruption victims are being transported is being overloaded with patients.

A fun fact about Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is that he once sent a Tesla Roadster into orbit, and it's still flying around out in space.

On December 5, Musk Tweeted out a render of two Starship rockets attached to individual tower arms, stating that SpaceX "will soon make these real". Following up on that Tweet, Musk wrote, "Starships to ♥️ Mars ♥️", to which Pak replied, "Do you ship to Mars?". Musk replied by writing, "You betcha. My car is currently orbiting Mars".

Musk's off-the-cuff comment about his Roadster orbiting Mars was met by criticism from Harvard Professor, Jonathan McDowell, who works at the university's Center for Astrophysics, who wrote, "Well, no. It's orbiting the Sun, and occasionally passes the orbit of Mars. Not the same thing." McDowell followed up by posting a map that displays the orbits of the Roadster, Earth, and Mars around the Sun.

What appears to be a cube-shaped object has been photographed on the horizon of the Moon, and now a lunar rover is on its way to check it out.

China's Chang'e-4 lunar lander mission introduced the Yutu-2 rover to the lunar surface back in 2019, and since then, it has been exploring the barren landscape, relaying any valuable information back to China National Space Administration (CNSA). According to Andrew Jones, a journalist that covers China's space program for SpaceNews, the Yutu-2 rover is located in the Von Karman crater, and the cube-shaped object is on the northern horizon approximately 80 meters away from the rover.

Jones goes on to say that the cube-shaped object is being referred to as "mystery house", and that the next 2-3 lunar days will be spent bringing Yutu-2 closer to the object. For those speculating that the cube-shaped object is an alien house/obelisk, Jones says it's more likely that it's a large undiscovered boulder that's been created from an asteroid impact. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Over the weekend there was a the only total solar eclipse for the rest of the year, and while it wasn't visible to majority of people, individuals still managed to capture stunning photographs of it.

(Image credit: Felipe Trueba/Imagen Chile/AFP via Getty Images)

A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes in front of the Sun from a viewers perspective, and depending on your location at Earth at the time, can make quite the spectacle for photography. On Saturday, December 4, a total solar eclipse, which only happens when the Moon is close enough to Earth that it blocks out the entirety of the Sun, was expected to happen for two minutes in Antarctica.

A recently discovered comet is expected to make a close fly-by of Earth within the coming weeks, and it may even be visible to the unaided eye.

Comet Leonard, or C/2021, will be making its closest approach to Earth on December 12, bringing it 22 million miles away from our planet, which is about 90 times farther away than the Moon. NASA says in the above video that comets are notoriously difficult to predict in terms of brightness/visibility, but Comet Leonard is predicted to be bright enough to be able to view it with binoculars. However, the possibility of it being visible to the unaided eye is still on the table as well.

EarthSky reports that Comet Leonard is "likely to be 2021's best comet, and its brightest comet by year's end". For the first two weeks of December, Leonard is visible in the sky in the east before sunrise, and according to NASA, it can be seen passing between the Big Dipper's handle and Arcturus. The space agency also states that the time of Leonard's closest approach to Earth will coincide with its approach to the horizon in the sky, which means that it will likely be brighter but more difficult to observe.