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An artist’s impression of the asteroid Apophis
Hold your breath. A huge asteroid named Apophis in honor of the ancient Egyptian god of chaos is hurtling towards us and will sneak past us on Friday and Saturday.
According to earthsky.org, this flyby is a precursor to the “tantalizingly close sweep” that Apophis will make in 2029.
Apophis plummets toward Earth at 4,658 kilometers per second.
But don’t worry too much just yet.
Earthsky.org says that while there is no chance of Apophis hitting Earth in this flyby (when it gets closer it will be about 44 times the distance from the moon), the asteroid will be within range of ground-based telescopes and radars.
Astronomers will follow your movements.
The asteroid Apophis will get closer to our planet in the early hours of Saturday morning at 03.15 am South African time. In this 2021 pass, it will reach just 16,852,369 kilometers from Earth.
According to NASA, the asteroid, which is the size of three and a half football fields, was discovered in 2004.
“… We have effectively ruled out the possibility of a ground impact by Apophis in 2036.”
Don Yeomans, Manager, NASA Near Earth Object Program Office at JPL
“It attracted the immediate attention of space scientists and the media when initial calculations of its orbit indicated a 2.7 percent chance of a ground impact during a close flyby in 2029.”
NASA said that data discovered during a search for ancient astronomical images provided the additional information needed to rule out the 2029 impact scenario, but that there was a remote possibility that there would be one in 2036, until last year.
“… We have effectively ruled out the possibility of a ground impact by Apophis in 2036,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program Office at JPL. “The probabilities of impact as they are now are less than one in a million, which makes us comfortable saying that we can effectively rule out an impact from Earth in 2036. Our interest in the asteroid Apophis will be essentially because of its scientific interest in the foreseeable future. “
The April 13, 2029 flyby of the asteroid Apophis will be one of the record books. On that date, Apophis will become the closest flyby of an asteroid of its size when it approaches no more than 31,300 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, NASA said.
NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets that pass close to Earth using ground and space telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called “Spaceguard,” discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and maps their orbits to determine if any could be potentially dangerous to our planet.
For more information on asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch Updates on near-Earth objects are also available by following AsteroidWatch on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch .
The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome offers a free online viewing session for the asteroid Apophis from March 5-6, 2021.
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