A massive asteroid with 62 potential lethal trajectories could hit Earth in 2023 … but probably not



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When you talk about large space rocks obstructing your home, how much does it take before you panic? According to reports that would rely on data coming directly from NASA, there is a high speed asteroid in the space that has 62 different potential impact trajectories on our planet. If the numbers are correct, the Earth could have a date with the asteroid as early as 2023 or 2117, but should we worry? Probably not.

The asteroid in question calls 2018 LF16 and it was last observed by the NASA reaction propulsion laboratory on June 16th. The ever vigilant authors of The Express report that the 2018 LF16 is almost 700 feet in diameter, that it carries 50 megatons of force and is currently moving at nearly 34,000MPH. The UK-based tabloid also states that "according to NASA calculations, there is a 30,000 chance that the LF16 will be projected onto our planet – 99.9999967% chance of missing a miss". For some reasons, the odds of winning a 6/49 draw are 1/13 983 816.

None of the "facts" included in the Express article (with the exception of one that proves that the asteroid exists) does not have a hyperlink to an official report of the NASA, and it seems that all the other articles on the Internet evoke the link of potential danger towards this one. source. With such an incredible impact, we wonder if NASA would take the trouble to share this information. Still, if you read Google 2018 LF16 after reading this, you will see several juicy headlines designed to whip up the bulk of the world's population who only read headlines in a sharing frenzy.

If we were to guess, someone would probably have searched the JPL Small-Body database browser, would have found an asteroid, pulled out a calculator and made sure the data matched a story to tell a story. The orbit diagram on the JPL site even states that it was "implemented using two-body methods, and therefore should not be used to determine specific long-term (over several years) trajectories. or decades) or circumstances of planetary encounters, "less exciting than the threat of a burning death in less than five years.

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