SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / CNN) – Amid a pandemic, civil unrest and a divided US election season, we now have an asteroid zooming in on us.
On the day before the presidential vote, no less.
The celestial object known as 2018VP1 is projected to come close to Earth on Nov. 2, according to the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The diameter is .002 km – about 6.5 feet – according to NASA data. It was first identified at Palomar Observatory in California in 2018.
For comparison, the asteroid that exploded over Russia in 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor, was about ten times wider – 66 feet in diameter.
NASA says there are three potential impacts, but, “based on 21 observations spanning 12,968 days,” the agency probably determined the asteroid – phew! – will not have a profound effect – let alone bring Armageddon.
The chance of it hitting the planet is just 0.41%, data show.
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