No, the “Election Day Asteroid” Is Not Going to End the World.
NASA isn’t worried, and you shouldn’t be either.
When the words “asteroid” and “impact” are used in breaking-news headlines, many people immediately start panicking, especially in a year like 2020. 2020 has been a very unlucky year for many, and it isn’t surprising that one would think that an asteroid is bad. While it’s true that an asteroid will reach Earth one day before Election Day, it isn’t a very large one and it has a low chance of entering Earth’s atmosphere. NASA isn’t worried, and you shouldn’t be either.
What Is This “Election Day” Asteroid?
2018VP1, more commonly known as the “Election Day Asteroid,” is a small asteroid that was first identified two years ago at Palomar Observatory. Back then, the asteroid was 280,000 miles away from Earth. It was difficult to track, though, because of its small size. According to NASA, there’s only a 0.41 percent (1 in 240) chance of 2018VP1 hitting Earth on November 2nd.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s also fairly small, roughly 2 meters or 6.5 feet. To paint a picture of how big that is, think of an average-sized refrigerator or a yoga mat. In a tweet, NASA mentioned that even if it does make it into our atmosphere, it’s very likely to disintegrate due to its small size. This is caused by the friction of heat created by the quick rate at which the asteroid crashes towards the Earth.
It seems that 2020 would be the perfect year for an asteroid to come near our planet, but it’s actually normal for asteroids to glide past Earth. Recently, on August 16, 2020, an asteroid traveled closer to Earth without touching it than any other asteroid before.
Designated as 2020 QG, it was discovered that the asteroid had traveled only 1,830 miles above our planet’s surface, which is very small in an astronomical context. 2018VP1 is expected to come around 3,000 miles above Earth. Similar to 2018VP1, 2020 QG was also a small asteroid, some 10–20 feet, and as a result was hard to track. If it were to enter our atmosphere, it would disintegrate. The asteroid came so close that Earth’s gravity managed to change its orbit.
According to the Planetary Society, asteroids only over 30 meters are capable of making significant damage to the Earth’s surface. The asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Chicxulub, was over 10 kilometers wide!
Don’t worry, the world will NOT end in 2020. NASA is committed to tracking potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA), and if one is ever detected, space agencies around the world will surely work to protect us.
(A description of the qualifications an object has to meet to become a PHA can be found here.)
