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An asteroid projected to reach Earth later this year has a 0.41 percent chance of hitting the planet, according to Nasa data.
The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the celestial object, known as 2018VP1, is expected to pass near Earth one day before the November 2 US presidential election.
The space agency said there were three potential impacts, but, “based on 21 observations spanning 12,968 days”, it did not think a direct impact was likely.
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2018VP1, first identified at Palomar Observatory, California, in 2018, is not considered a “potentially dangerous object” due to its small size – with a diameter of 0.002 km (about 6.5 feet), according to Nasa data .
Potentially dangerous objects – mostly asteroids or comets – are those that have an orbit that takes them close to Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage if they ever hit the planet.
Earlier this week, an asteroid flew just 1,830 miles across the southern Indian Ocean – the closest such object has flown to Earth on record.
The object, known as the asteroid 2020 GC, was detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility, a robotic camera that scans the air, and is thought to be roughly the size of a large car.
The small size means that asteroid 2020 GC does not pose much of an threat to Earth, as it would probably have erupted in the planet’s atmosphere if it were on course for direct impact.
“It’s really cool to see a small asteroid coming close to this, because we can dramatically bend the Earth’s gravitational trajectory,” said Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS, about the discovery.
“Our calculations show that this asteroid rotated 45 degrees as it swung across our planet.”
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