UK only 82 miles wide, Fox News science reporters found out :)

[Jokodo]

Probably better for the humor section, but whatever:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018...how.html?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral

The space rock, known as 4 Vesta is four times the size of the UK (...)

(skip one paragraph)

The asteroid measures more than 326 miles in diameter (...)

 

[Jokodo]

Maybe they were thinking  Scandinavian_miles?

 

[Bomb#20]

Area of Vesta: 866,000 km² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta
Area of Britain: 209,331 km² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

But it appears Mr. Birchall, the (presumably British) author of the Sun article the "Fox News science reporters" reprinted, forgot to count Northern Ireland. The correct figure is 3.57 times the size of the UK.

 

[Underseer]

Area of Vesta: 866,000 km² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta
Area of Britain: 209,331 km² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

But it appears Mr. Birchall, the (presumably British) author of the Sun article the "Fox News science reporters" reprinted, forgot to count Northern Ireland. The correct figure is 3.57 times the size of the UK.

The first "area" you list is total surface area. Cross-sectional area would be a meaningful comparison in this case.

 

[bilby]

The standard unit of area shall be the nanoWales, defined as 1nWa, representing 0.0000207km² or 20.78m², 5.195 Thai talang wah or 28.99 Old Spanish square vara. The microWales, milliWales and Wales (Wa) are, naturally, accepted multiples of the base nanoWales.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/

 

[rjh01]

Deleted. Already said