- A planet called Apophis will fly through the earth on Friday night after the ancient Egyptian god Chaos.
- The space stone is more than 1,100 feet wide – wider than the Eiffel Tower.
- When Apophis returns in 2029, its path intersects with high-altitude satellites in Earth orbit.
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A huge asteroid is to be zoomed in about four footb fields by Earth.
After the god of chaos in ancient Egypt, the space stone is named 99942 Apophis. The Eiffel Tower is much wider than tall: about 1,115 feet (340 m).
At 8:15 pm ET on Friday night, the planet will come within 10.4 million miles of Earth’s surface. That is about 44 times the distance between the earth and the moon. But a flyby near Apophis, on April 13, 2029, will bring a planet within 19,000 miles of Earth – it’s between our planet and the moon. It would be the closest planet to the size of Epophys that has come to Earth’s surface that scientists knew in advance, according to NASA.
That future approach will be so close that the planet could collide with high-altitude communications satellites around the Earth.
The animation below shows that the distance between Ap Pofis and Earth will be eight years from now. The blue dots represent the satellites of the satellites and the International Space Station is in pink.
Preparing Apophis return
The Apophis will not be visible to the naked eye tonight – you would need at least a foot-long diameter telescope to see it. But Rome’s Virtual Telescope project is offering a viewing online viewing session on ET at 7 p.m.
The discovery of the asteroid caused waves in 2004, as astronomers calculated at the time that there was little chance of hitting the planet in 2029. NASA scientists have since revised this estimate.
“We have known for some time that impact with Earth is not possible during the approaching 2029 approach,” said Dave Tho Tho, a researcher at the University of Hawaii who helped find Ap Pofis in October.
Whenever a planet comes close to Earth, astronomers have the opportunity to study the space rock and learn about its shape and spin.
When scientists first discovered Apophysis in June 2004, they had only two days to observe before weather and technical problems got in the way. No images of rock surface exist. So this imminent pass, as well as a route in 2029, will help scientists investigate the formation of the apophysis.
“A closer approach to Apophys in 2029 will be an incredible opportunity for science,” said Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2019. We will be able to see the details of the surface which is a few meters in size. “
During the 2029 flyby, the apophysis will be visible to the naked eye, appearing as a rapidly moving point of light that begins in the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere and moves around the world from east to west.
Below is the NASA animation showing the way to Apophis on April 13, 2029.
Apophis has a probability of 380,000 in 1 hitting the Earth in 2068
Apophis came out of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Yet, NASA knows it is made up of silicate rocks, nickel and iron. Radar images indicate it looks like peanuts.
After 2029, Apophis will have a closer Earth encounter, which will pass again in 2036 and 2068. It is unlikely to have an impact in 2036, but NASA estimates 1 in 380,000 suggest that Apophis could strike in 2068.
Until last year, astronomers thought it would be impossible for Ap Pofis to strike Earth in 2068, but that changed after Thalen Lane’s team presented new research at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The group showed that asteroids are changing speed and direction over time.
Asteroid Vesta in space.
NASA
These changes come from a process known as the Yarkovsky acceleration: as asteroids absorb energy from the sun, they emit energy as heat, which changes their orbit slightly.
Recent research has shown that this is happening with Apophis.
The orbit of the asteroid is moving about 88 feet per year, Tholen said – which is “enough to keep the 206868 impact scenario in play.”
