In news that feels extremely on-the-nose for the chaotic disaster that is 2020, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson revealed over the weekend that an asteroid could potentially strike Earth on Nov. 2, the day before the election.
Don’t let that impact your voting plan, however: the asteroid has a diameter roughly the size of a refrigerator, meaning it’s too small to do any serious damage.
Tyson shared the news on Instagram, writing that the space rock known as 2018VP1 is currently headed towards Earth at 25,000 miles per hour and is estimated to collide with the planet on Nov. 2.
“It may buzz-cut Earth on Nov. 2, the day before the Presidential Election,” he wrote. “But it’s not big enough to cause harm. So if the World ends in 2020, it won’t be the fault of the Universe.”
NASA had previously identified 2018VP1 and put its chances of actually hitting Earth at less than one percent. “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,” the agency’s “Asteroid Watch” account tweeted back on Aug. 23.
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