Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweets about US election day asteroid approaching Earth on 2 Nov

Image credit: ESA-ScienceOffice.org[/caption]Going by the track record of the wide-ranging damage brought upon us in 2020, many people believed that the ‘Election Day asteroid’ could bring about an end of life. But NASA has maintained that the space rock posed “no threat” to Earth. The 6.5 feet inch asteroid has a 0.41 per cent or one in 240 chance of entering our world’s atmosphere. But even if it did, there is still no apparent danger as 2018VP1 would “disintegrate due to its extremely small size”.Moreover, scientists are saying that there is no reason for 2018VP1 to enjoy such buzz as asteroids this small hit the Earth several times per year. Bill Bottke, director of the department of space studies at the Southwest Research Institute, added that we were lucky as we detected it before it made a close encounter.For comparison, the Chicxulub impactor that led to the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs from the planet some 66 million years ago, was nearly 10 km wide.The asteroid 2018VP1 was first discovered at the Palomar Observatory in California’s San Diego County in 2018 and hence the mention of the year in its name. NASA has detailed information catalogued for the asteroid in its JPL Small-Body Database Browser.