November 2, 2020?
Photo: Scientific photo library – ANDRZEJ / Getty Images
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More and more, when I consider the fact that we are only two months away and moving away from one of the most crucial and precarious elections in the history of the nation (if not la), I have to stop what I’m doing to deal with heavy breathing; little shrill cries; and sit in the shower. The stakes are steep and the memories of election night 2016 strangely fresh. Hit me, I whisper to the Universe in these moments. Do whatever you gotta do, don’t make me watch the returns again.
Be aware that an asteroid entering Earth on the eve of the 2020 election is not what I had in mind, and I’m sorry. I was thinking of something more like a long, suitably timed sleep, or to be stuck in the fish tube and dropped in 2021 / oblivion. But according to CNN, a possible impact event is what we get instead. The chances of a collision are slim, but still.
Asteroid 2018VP1 is about 6.5 feet in diameter and was discovered in 2018. According to the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it will come closer to Earth on November 2. NASA has calculated the probability of an attack to be around 0.41 percent, and doesn’t think 2018VP1 will bring the end of days. Nonetheless, we must examine the evidence.
A quick look at some bad omens we’ve seen in recent months: a plague of deadly insects; real, infectious plagues (assorted); apocalyptic time events such as monster hail, flash floods and “firenados“; a black river of melted mud running through Arizona; rodents coming out of the sewers to recover our cities; the the moon is actively distancing itself from us, for reasons that I think are obvious. Certainly the planet already got a pass on a much bigger space rock which zoomed in April, but an asteroid ending for 2020? At this point he feels a bit on his nose.