Called 2018VP1, this space rock has a relatively high probability of breaking through Earth’s atmosphere and crashing into Earth. When? Next November, just one day before the US presidential election.
The 2020 presidential election will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, and will be the 59th presidential election in the United States
The asteroid was discovered by the Palomar Observatory in California in 2018 and is, according to a list made by the European Space Agency, the second nearby object most likely to hit our planet this century.
Its next approach will be on November 2, 2020, with an estimated probability of impact of 1 in 193. However, the asteroid is about 2.4 meters in diameter, something that rules it out as a threat and predicts a disintegration destination in case to actually enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
2️⃣ days to #AsteroidDay!
The second most likely asteroid to strike Earth is 2018 VP1. A tiny little thing, it is estimated to be just 2.4 m in diameter and has a (relatively) high chance of striking Earth in November this year of 1 in 193 #SpaceCare?#PlanetaryDefence? pic.twitter.com/fYI9Dk3mXt
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) June 28, 2020
For comparison, the meteor that exploded in the 2013 sky over Chelyabinsk, Siberia, had an estimated diameter of 20 meters and a mass of thousands of tons. On that occasion, the shock wave caused shattered thousands of windows and caused more than a thousand injuries, but no fatalities.
The last asteroid to have a close pass was 2020QG, which last August 16 it skimmed the Earth at 12.4 kilometers per second and at a distance of less than 3,000 kilometers, setting a new proximity record without crashing.
