An asteroid must pass extremely close to the earth, just in front Election day in November. But there’s no reason to worry – NASA says this spaceflight does not pose a risk to our planet.
Asteroid 2018 VP1 will zoom past Earth on November 2, one day before Americans vote for the next president. In a year where unpredictable disasters have apparently become routine, NASA is working hard to calm fears of a potential collision.
According to the space agency, even if this asteroid hit the Earth’s atmosphere, it would be too small to do damage.
“Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, about 6.5 meters, and poses no threat to Earth!”, NASA Twittered Asteroid Watch Sunday. “It currently has a 0.41% chance of entering the atmosphere of our planet, but if it did, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size.”
Scientists from the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory discovered the asteroid in 2018. Since then, they have been struggling to track its location and trajectory because of its small size.
NASA researchers have been formally cataloging “near-Earth objects” since 1998, and have so far discovered about 19,000. None of the known objects that could be potentially dangerous to the planet are on track to pass the Earth in the near future.
In fact, asteroids fly along the Earth all the time – sometimes without us even knowing it. Just last week, an asteroid was the closest ever recorded, flew within 1,830 miles of Earth, and scientists were not even aware of its existence until hours after it had already passed our planet.
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