Tiny Asteroid may hit Earth a day before US Election in November

Team Udayavani, Aug 24, 2020, 6:40 PM IST

NASA scientists have predicted that the asteroid “2018VP1” with a diameter of 0.002 km (about 6.5 feet) will pass near Earth one day before the 2020 US election

It was first identified at Palomar Observatory in California in 2018. Scientists claim that at 6.5 feet in diameter, it is not considered a “potentially dangerous” near-Earth object

According to CNN, NASA says there are three potential impacts, But based on 21 observations spanning 12.968 days it probably won’t have a deep impact

Earlier, an asteroid flew past Earth over the last weekend and the first image of this record-setting space rock, asteroid 2020 QG, was taken by a NASA-funded facility six hours after the closest point of approach as the asteroid was heading away from Earth.

The asteroid was discovered by two students of IIT-Bombay, Kunal Deshmukh and Kritti Sharma, hailing from Pune and Haryana.

Sources claim, they were working on a research project to hunt for Near Earth Asteroids.