NASA Data Shows Tiny Asteroid Has Non-Zero Collision Probability In 2020

NASA’s asteroid impact monitoring system has detected a space rock that has a non-zero possibility of hitting Earth in the near future. According to the data gathered by the space agency, the automated system identified three non-zero impacts possibilities for the asteroid in a span of five years.

NASA’s monitoring system is known as Sentry. It works by scanning current asteroid catalogs in search of space rocks with non-zero collision probabilities.

"Sentry is a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalog for possibilities of future impact with Earth," NASA describes of the system.

"Whenever a potential impact is detected it will be analyzed and the results immediately published here."

One of the asteroids identified by Sentry is called 2018 VP1.

According to the space agency, Sentry has detected a total of three potential impact dates for this asteroid. Based on Sentry’s calculations, these could happen sometime between 2020 and 2025.

As indicated in NASA’s database, 2018 VP1’s upcoming near-Earth approach will happen on Nov. 2, 2020. During this time, the asteroid will only be about 0.00280 astronomical units or roughly 260,276 miles from the planet. This is almost the same as the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Although it seems the asteroid will be flying past Earth from a relatively safe distance, there are several factors in space that can easily alter its trajectory. One of these is a gravitational keyhole. This refers to a region in space that’s heavily affected by the gravitational pull of a large cosmic object such as a planet.

Since 2018 VP1 is known to closely approach Earth and the Moon, the asteroid is prone to getting influenced by these cosmic objects’ gravitational forces. However, the chances of the asteroid hitting Earth is very slim.

Earth is also not in danger from 2018 VP1 even if these two collide simply because the asteroid is too small. As noted by the agency, 2018 VP1 is only about 3 feet wide. This means the asteroid will most likely burn up and disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere before reaching the ground.

According to NASA, 2018 VP1 is an Apollo asteroid. This means it has a very wide orbit around the Earth and the Sun. Occasionally, its orbit intersects with that of Earth as it goes around the giant star.