Will Apophis Hit the Earth? Predictions Say This Asteroid is Not a Threat, but Read More

A large asteroid, I like to call it a big rock , is circling the sun as you are reading this. It has probably been doing it for centuries if not for thousands of centuries. So, what's the big deal ? This rock named 99942 apophis, about as big as three football fields, is going to come close enough during its rounds of the solar system to be between us and those satellites we have put up.

That's close. Officials from the Thai Astronomical Society say it will come within about 34,400 kilometres ( within 20,000 miles ) of earth. People in Asia and Northern Africa will be able to see it clearly without any help from a telescope. They will be able to just look up and see it. " Oh, what's that ?" will probably be said many times that day. The date for this visit is none other than Friday April 13, 2029. Yes, its on a Friday the Thirteenth !

So what are those chances ? Scientists started out with predictions of a one-in-forty chance of apophis striking the earth. They have changed that down to about a one-in-ten thousand chance. Those are not bad chances if we were talking about the lottery. But this is not the lottery.

This is apophis, a rock big enough to take out Texas with one hit. One very interesting thing that will take place on that Friday April 13, 2029, is that apophis will be affected by earth's gravitational pull. For this reason, all predictions are very much ( pardon the pun ) "still up in the air" . No one really knows the exact chances of apophis hitting the earth because of the gravitational effect earth will have on that fateful Friday.

So what are we doing about it ? NASA has some advanced plans, ambitious plans, even nuclear plans. That's right, if you saw the movie "Deep Impact", NASA is thinking about this option, minus the humans. They have expressed three ways of trying to get apophis to not hit us. Exploding nuclear bombs near it, a kinetic vehicle that hits apophis at high speed, and a "solar option" that stations a vehicle close to apophis and focuses the suns rays on it, partially burning it and taking it off its regular course.

NASA is not losing any sleep. They have two more chances to estimate whether or not we will get hit. Apophis will have two more fly-bys, one in 2013, and another in 2021. We have two more chances to answer that question, " Will Apophis hit the earth ? ".

The defining moment when those chances of apophis hitting us or not will not be fully known until after April 13, 2029, when it either will or will not enter what NASA calls "the keyhole". Its a place in space near the earth that will have a gravitational pull that may lead apophis to strike the earth when it comes back around the next time, around 2036.

Just where did they get that weird name for "apophis" ? It is the Egyptian god of darkness and chaos. I hope they named it wrong.