Could an asteroid hit Earth before Election Day? Yes, but it probably won’t do much

Celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson recently confirmed in an Instagram post that an asteroid could hit Earth right before the election.

Don’t worry, though. It won’t do much damage.

What’s going on?

Tyson said the asteroid 2018VP1 is heading toward Earth at 25,000 miles per hour.

• The asteroid could clip Earth.
• “It may buzz-cut Earth on Nov. 2, the day before the Presidential Election. But it’s not big enough to cause harm. So if the World ends in 2020, it won’t be the fault of the Universe.”

Flashback:

I wrote for Deseret about this asteroid back at the end of August. The asteroid was first discovered back in 2018 and it was 280,000 miles away from Earth. It takes about two years to finish its full orbit, which will end this fall.

NASA is well aware of 2018VP1. It said the chances of the asteroid hitting Earth is about 1%.

• “It currently has a 0.41% chance of entering our planet’s atmosphere, but if it did, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size,” NASA said in a tweet.

NASA said the asteroid would be reduced massively by the time it gets to Earth.

• “If it were to enter our planet’s atmosphere, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size. NASA has been directed by Congress to discover 90% of the near-Earth asteroids larger than 459 feet in size and reports on asteroids of any size,” NASA said, according to The Hill.