2020 has been a doozy of a year, and with everything from COVID-19 to murder hornets, it seems that mankind has had just about everything thrown at us. However, the year isn't over yet, and there are more things to deal with, including an asteroid that might be on a collision course with the planet. To make matters even worse, it could hit on November 2, the day before Election Day.
NASA broke the news on Twitter but revealed that, thankfully, we don't have too much to worry about. The rock, which was first identified in 2018, is only 6.5 feet wide so it "poses no threat to Earth." As for the likelihood of entering the atmosphere, they put the chances at 0.41%, and because of its small size, the asteroid would disintegrate before ever reaching the ground. The space agency noted, "Based on 21 observations spanning 12.968 days," it is almost certain to not have a deep impact.
One senior researcher at NASA told the New York Times that this is nothing new, explaining, "Close approaches by small objects of this size are not rare, and even if something of this size were to impact, the object would not likely survive the Earth's atmosphere."
In fact, just last week an asteroid made a very close call, flying just 1,830 miles over the Indian Ocean - making it the closest non-impacting asteroid on record that has ever flown past the Earth.
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