NASA reveals an asteroid will be nearing Earth right before the US elections

People around the world are saying that 2020 has been one of the worst years of human history. People have witnessed many unforeseen events like the Australian bushfire, Coronavirus pandemic, Beirut explosion, and the list just goes on. While the year still has a few months left to complete, people are scared about what else could happen in this year. This is the reason why many people got scared when NASA declared that an asteroid is projected to come close to Earth right before the US elections.

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An asteroid coming close to Earth before the US election

According to NASA, the asteroid 2018VP1 is going to come close to Earth on November 2, 2020, a day before the US elections. While the world has seen a lot these 8 months of 2020, people are scared about the asteroid falling on the Earth. Nevertheless, there is nothing to worry about. The asteroid 218VP1 was found in the year 2018, as the name suggests, at the Palomar Observatory in California.

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The Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a Tweet that the "Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approximately 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth. If it were to enter our planet's atmosphere, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size."

The organisation further continued by saying, "NASA has been directed by Congress to discover 90% of the near-Earth asteroids larger than 140 meters (459 feet) in size and reports on asteroids of any size."

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This means that we do not have to worry about asteroid as it would not cause massive destruction even if it falls. However, NASA also mentioned that the chance of it hitting us is just 0.41% which is 1 in 240, data shows. However, even if this slight chance scares you, you must know that the asteroid that destroyed the existence of the Dinosaurs had a diameter of 10 Km after it lost some of its volume in its descent.

Whereas 2018VP1 is only the size of a small car which is around 2 metres (7 feet) in diameter. The asteroid before elections is making many people feel uneasy as it is going to come within 4,994.76 kilometres of Earth. But, NASA assures that there are quite lesser chances of it to fall and zero to no chances of it to cause any kind of destruction. The US Presidential elections are going to take place on November 3, 2020.

All Images/Gif ~ NASA

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