An Asteroid is Headed Toward Earth Just in Time for - You Guessed It! - Election Day

If you weren't already anxious about November 3, a hurtling space rock is headed our way to add to the chaos. Not to fear though, the asteroid, named "2018VP1," is only about the size of a truck (an estimated diameter of 1.8 to 3.9 meters per NASA data), and will likely burn up in the atmosphere a day before Election Day, on November 2. It also only has an estimated 0.41% chance of being in the right trajectory to hit Earth anyhow. "Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approximately 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth," a spokesperson for NASA told Business Insider. So nothing near the size of the planet killers featured in Michael Bay's Armageddon or Mimi Leder's Deep Impact. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/12/action-analysis-empire-strikes-backs-asteroid-chase"] Apparently, 2018VP1, which holds a two-year orbit around the sun, has already had a few close calls with Earth dating all the way back to 1970. Last week, on August 16, an SUV-size space rock ("2020 QG") flew past our planet, per NASA. There are "hundreds of millions of small asteroids the size of 2020 QG, but they are extremely hard to discover until they get very close to Earth." Anyhow, if you're really set on preventing Armageddon, remember to vote! [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=justice-league-snyder-cut-all-the-known-differences-from-the-theatrical-version&captions=true"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

from IGN News https://ift.tt/3hp3Wqu
via IFTTT