Headlines abound this week about an asteroid heading toward Earth at perhaps the most appropriate time in a terrible year: November 2, the day before the presidential election. It sounds too good to be true – an asteroid to wipe us all out for what is sure to be a very controversial election process – and that’s because it is.
This so-called “dangerous” asteroid, called 2018VP1, has a 0.41 percent chance of crossing paths with Earth on November 2 and entering our atmosphere – incredibly low odds. And even if it took a turn and hit us, no one would be in danger. The asteroid is a moderate 2 meters, about 6.5 feet, dwarf, which makes it slightly smaller than a compact Smart car. If it affected our atmosphere, it would completely disintegrate above us and pose no threat to anyone below. For reference, much larger satellites and space debris enter our atmosphere from time to time, burning above us without anyone affecting the ground.
I understand it’s 2020, the year of just incredibly bad odds, so it would be very poetic for an asteroid to threaten Earth before Election Day. But the thing is, asteroids whisper all the time through Earth, sometimes getting closer to us and sometimes not.
In fact, another small asteroid between 10 and 20 feet away made the closest approach to Earth ever taken by a known near-Earth asteroid on August 16, and came within 1,830 miles, or 2,950 kilometers. That one was also small enough to burn in the atmosphere if it managed to cross the Earth’s path, but astronomers did not see it until six hours after it passed. NASA notes that it is difficult to detect asteroids so small because they move fast, and there is only a short window to spot them as they approach Earth.
Rest assured that NASA is committed to detecting and tracking the asteroids that to do pose potential threats to our planet. NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), located at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, aims to catalog more than 90 percent of all asteroids in Earth’s orbits that are larger than one kilometer – about two-thirds of a mile – across, as well as a significant fraction of asteroids larger than 140 meters, or about 460 feet, wide. The center uses a wide variety of ground-based telescopes to track these objects, and it maintains a comprehensive catalog of all that is transmitted to Earth.
