With asteroid 2018 VP1 making recent headlines, Dr. Ed Lu, Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute, recently spoke to Salon about the unlikelihood of this asteroid hitting Earth.  Lu notes that 2018 VP1 will be like “a shooting star in the sky” if it enters Earth’s atmosphere. This is a good example  illustrating how asteroids that are only tracked for a short period have considerable uncertainty in their orbits. Read more about why this particular asteroid poses little threat to earth here.

Note: Ed was misquoted in the following sentence: “… of a range of possibilities that are all consistent with those two data points that we have.” It should read: “… of a range of possibilities that are all consistent with those few data points that we have.”