Tiny asteroid to hit Earth a day before US election, here's the real truth

In yet another bad news in 2020, world's premier space agency NASA has predicted that a small asteroid heading towards the Earth is likely to hit planet Earth one day before the US presidential election that is scheduled for November 3.

Though the news has been making headlines, there is no need to worry about this asteroid named 2018VP1 by NASA. The asteroid was first spotted in 2018 by Palomar Observatory in California while it was around 450,000 kilometres (280,000 miles) away from Earth. According to NASA, the asteroid has got a two-year orbital period, and it is now on its way back around again towards us.

Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approx. 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth! 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 Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) August 23, 2020

It is expected that 2018VP1 would come within 4,994.76 kilometres of Earth, which means there's a slight chance (1 in 240 or 0.41 percent) of this asteroid colliding with Earth on November 2, 2020. Experts maintain that even if 2018VP1 hit the Earth, it would not cause much damage because it's only the size of a small car - around 2 metres (7 feet) in diameter. 

It is to be noted that a car-sized asteroid flew past Earth few days ago and scientists hardly had any information about it until it departed. NASA said that the asteroid passed 2,950 kilometres above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday at 12.08 am EDT (9.38 pm India time).

Notably, majority of Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs pass by safely at much greater distances.