With 2020 going in the books as a peak year for apocalyptic mayhem, including, but not limited to a new plague, widespread paranoia, a global economic freeze, cities burning unchecked, the Pentagon releasing UFO footage, and murder hornets, some are asking “Where do we go from here?”
NASA has an answer: space rocks on a near-collision course with Earth. The space agency announced an asteroid headed towards Earth is expected to pass by eerily close to our home planet on the day before the 2020 general election.
A database from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near Objects Studies reports that space rock 2018VP1 will have a near miss with Earth on Nov. 2, only one day before the U.S. presidential election between Trump and Biden on Nov. 3.
Scientists say the space rock is 6.5 feet in diameter and they do not believe it is a “potentially dangerous” entity, but scientists are keeping a close eye on it, as well as other asteroids of related size in the area. The object was first observed on Nov. 3, 2018, and spotted once again almost two weeks ago.
NASA warned there are believed to be three possible places where it could crash into the Earth, based on the 21 observations of the asteroid, but NASA maintains the probability of direct impact is very unlikely, placing the odds of a direct impact with Earth at 0.41 percent.
“Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approximately 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth,” a NASA spokesperson said in an email to Fox News.
“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 140 meters (459 feet) in size and reports on asteroids of any size,” the spokesperson said.
NASA classifies a “potentially hazardous” asteroid as any space object that comes within at least 0.05 astronomical units of Earth and measures greater than 460 feet in diameter.
On Aug. 16 an asteroid of comparable size, 2020 QG, became the nearest space rock ever recorded to soar past the Earth and went unnoticed by NASA because it came from the direction of the sun, making it more difficult to detect.
Fox News reports a NASA spokesperson previously stated “similar asteroids” to 2020 QG “would have disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere had they impacted.” NASA is in the process of building a “space-based infrared telescope that will have better capability to identify similar asteroids,” according to the spokesperson.
A poll in 2019 revealed that Americans would rather have a space program that observes the possibility of asteroid impacts in place of sending humans back to the moon or a first expedition to Mars. That same year, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine expressed that a hazardous asteroid impact should be taken seriously and is conceivably the biggest threat to Earth.
“We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood, it’s not about movies,” Bridenstine said at a space conference in 2019, reports Space.com. “This is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know right now to host life, and that is the planet Earth.”
“We know for a fact that the dinosaurs did not have a space program. But we do, and we need to use it,” Bridenstine went on.
“I wish I could tell you these events are exceptionally unique,” Bridenstine warned during his speech, citing relevant impacts have occurred three times in the last 100 years. “But they are not.”
President Trump has openly endorsed more studies of the cosmos and space travel, in both public and private enterprises. With or without the aid of NASA, the president plans on putting people back on the moon by 2024.