Whereas the American astrophysicist, DJ Tyson, had previously reported in his account on “Instagram” that an asteroid with a diameter of a few meters could fall to Earth on November 2, that is, one day before the US presidential election.
Kiseliov added that it is funny to link one of this asteroid to the presidential elections in the United States of America. This is a routine phenomenon that occurs at the end of October and early November every year when a few asteroids approach Earth, including 2018 VP1, which belongs to the “Apollo” group of asteroids that orbit the sun And the orbits of some of them may intersect with the Earth’s orbit when they are away from the sun as far as possible.
The Russian astronomer said that the probability of an asteroid collision with the Earth is 0.4%, and he proposed several scenarios for the asteroid approaching the Earth due to the influence of the gravitational force of other planets in the solar system and the moon as well, and one of those scenarios stipulates that the asteroid approaches three o’clock at night on November 1 Moscow time to a distance of 60,000 Kilometers.
The ideal scenario is the asteroid approaching the Earth at 4 pm on November 1 Moscow time to a distance of 420,000 km, and the least likely scenario, which does not increase the probability of achieving it 0.4%, is the asteroid entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The astronomer added, “The asteroid will disintegrate into debris and burn in the layers of the Earth’s atmosphere if it is soft, and a few of its fragments may fall to the Earth if it is solid, and even in this case, it will not be able to cause any harm.
This asteroid brought back to mind the asteroid “Chelyabinsk”, which exploded and fell to Earth in 2013, whose diameter was evaluated in kilometers, not meters, and one of its large fragments weighing 600 kg fell into a lake.
It is noteworthy that NASA had reported last August that the asteroid 2018 VP1 will approach Earth at 18.33 on November 2 Moscow time, at a distance of 384 thousand km, and the probability of falling to the Earth will not be more than 0.41%.
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