Apophis, the asteroid that could hit Earth in 2029 In the solar system, there are thousands of
asteroids that orbit very close to the Earth, they are known as NEOs (Near Earth Objects),
and have one in particular that some years raised concern in the scientific community
since it had a high probability of colliding with Earth; this is the asteroid Apophis.
Is this asteroid still on a collision course toward Earth? And if so, when will
the day of impact occur? Join us to find out!
NEOs The Near Earth Objects, also called NEOs, are all
those space objects, such as asteroids or comets, whose orbits around the sun place them too close
to Earth. But what do we mean when we say "close"? One of the problems astronomers always have when
they discover a NEO is trying to explain to society that although this object will
pass close to Earth, this does not mean that it will collide with our planet.
When an astronomer says "close," he does not mean that an asteroid will pass a few meters
above the atmosphere; he means that it is less than 1.3 astronomical units from Earth.
To give you an idea, one astronomical unit equals 93 million miles (150 million km).
This means that when an astronomer says that an asteroid will pass "close" to Earth,
he means that it will pass less than 150 million kilometers from our planet,
more or less the distance from Earth to the sun. As you can imagine, we are talking about huge
distances and, therefore, even if an object is classified as NEO,
it does not mean it is about to hit the Earth; it simply means that you must keep a good eye on it.
There are currently more than 30,000 registered NEOs, and today we will talk about one of them,
the asteroid Apophis, a vast rock that, when discovered, calculations indicated that it
would crash into the Earth. It all started on Jupiter
In July 1994, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter, marking the first
time in human history that scientists and astronomers could directly observe
a space object's impact on a planet in real time. If you would like to know more about this event,
we leave you a link to a video where we talk about it in much more detail.
The impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was an unprecedented astronomical
event that significantly influenced science and public awareness of the
study of Near Earth Objects ( NEOs ). Shoemaker-Levy 9, commonly known as SL9,
was a periodic comet that had broken into multiple fragments due to the tidal forces
of Jupiter's powerful gravitational field on a close pass of the planet in 1992.
Two years later, these fragments developed into a series of cometary nuclei that headed toward a
catastrophic impact with Jupiter in July 1994. The impact of the SL9 fragments on Jupiter's surface
caused enormous changes to the planet over several weeks. It is even estimated that the
impact changed a little coloron the planet. It was the first time the human race
witnessed firsthand how devastating meteorite impacts can be on a planet.
But… What does this have to do with the Apophis comet?
The reason is that before the impact of comet SL9 on Jupiter, humanity and even the scientific
community had no interest in investigating the impacts of asteroids or comets on the planets.
It was thought that it only happened once every few million years. Years and that
there was nothing to worry about. But this event changed everything;
now we know that these events are still happening in our solar system and that the
Earth could meet the same fate at any moment. This caused great concern in the scientific
community and in the US government, which led to the funding of large projects to locate
all objects that could pose a threat to Earth. Thus, NASA and other organizations intensified
their Near-Earth Object observing programs and set ambitious goals to identify and track the
majority of NEOs in the solar system. This included the goal of identifying
90% of NEOs larger than one kilometer in diameter by 2008, ushering in an era of
increased awareness and preparedness for impact risk mitigation, as well as funding
for scientific research projects focused on NEOs and the construction of astronomical telescopes
and observatories to search for asteroids and comets with orbits close to Earth.
One such observatory was the Kitt National Astronomical Observatory. Peak, abbreviated KPNO,
is located in the Arizona desert in the USA at 2096 meters above sea level.
This observatory would be the one that would discover the Apophis asteroid.
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Apophis the bringer of destruction After the desperate race to find
objects that could impact Earth began, many observatories worldwide joined the search.
Objects with collision courses against the Earth were found from time to time. Still,
once the corresponding calculations were made, they were immediately discarded as they did
not represent a threat to our planet. However, that changed on June 19, 2004,
that night during a routine observation session, researchers Roy A. Tucker,
David J. Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi detected a small bright spot in the telescope images;
this was not something new; they had previously discovered asteroids using the same technique.
To detect asteroids, all you have to do is take several images of the sky every second with the
background of stars, and if at any time you notice a point similar to a star that moves
much faster than the stars. You should stop, pay attention, and analyze what it is about.
This is what the scientists did: they analyzed the images based on the signals of light intensity and
trajectory of the object. Thanks to that, they could determine its size, but when performing
orbital calculations to estimate its trajectory, they discovered something that left them frozen.
This object's orbit, with a diameter of more than 300 meters, indicated that it
would crash into Earth on April 13, 2029! While this asteroid wasn't as giant as
the one that killed the dinosaurs, it was big enough to destroy an entire continent
without a problem; the threat was real. The researchers couldn't believe the finding,
so they did what any scientist would do: try to disprove their discovery.
To do this, they sent the coordinates and images of the asteroid to all the available observatories
so that they could also observe it and corroborate the collision calculations with the Earth.
This turned out to be the most challenging part since, being a small body, it was difficult
to observe; in fact, KPNO investigators only managed to observe it for two nights,
and then they completely lost sight of it. With the images they had obtained during those two
nights, everything indicated that the impact was imminent. Initially, the name 99942 was given, but
as soon as it was known that the probability of a collision with our planet was high, the scientists
who had discovered it began to call him Apophis. As a curious fact, many think that scientists
gave it this name because Apophis is the name of the Egyptian god of destruction. But in reality,
the scientists gave it this name because they were fans of the science fiction television
series Stargate SG-1, in which one of the main villains is an alien called Apophis,
who takes the name of the Egyptian god and whose main objective is to destroy the Land.
After being observed for only two nights, the discovery of Apophis began to appear in the news,
and everyone began to talk about it. Still, a few months later, on December 18 of the same year,
astronomer Gordon Garradd observed it again at the observatory of Australia,
and shortly after, it was seen from various observatories around the world.
The asteroid Apophis was in everyone's sights as it was the first object that
had an actual probability of colliding with Earth, but is Apophis still on a
collision course with Earth today? The most dangerous asteroid of all
Since its discovery in 2004, Apophis has been observed by dozens of observatories and telescopes
worldwide, and even space telescopes have given us more information about its trajectory.
Various orbital calculation systems made by hundreds of scientists show that the next closest
approach date will be April 13, 2029. Experts predict that if Apophis hit the Earth would do
so somewhere in a vast area between the Kamchatka peninsula (Russia) and the region of Venezuela.
Then, the probability of impact was also calculated. To the surprise of astronomers,
in the first few days after its discovery, new observations from telescopes around the
world increased the impact probability instead of reducing it, reaching as much as 2.7% (1 in 37).
This relatively high impact probability, combined with the size of the asteroid
(more than 300 meters), made Apophis receive level 4 on the Turin scale. This value is
the highest that any asteroid has ever achieved. The Turing scale is a method for classifying the
hazard associated with the impact of near-Earth objects. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 10,
where 0 is no or almost unlikely probability of impact, 1 is a moderate probability of impact,
from 2 to 4 means that the probability is high or it is a close encounter (like Apophis),
from 5 to 7 means that the asteroid represents a severe threat to the Earth and measures should
be planned in case the impact occurs and 8 to 10 means that the impact is 100% safe.
In this case, 8 means that the impact will cause local damage within a range of no more
than a thousand kilometers, 9 means that the impact will cause regional damage; that is,
the asteroid could destroy a large country or several small countries,
and 10 means that the impact will cause a global climate catastrophe that may
threaten all life on Earth or even cause the extinction of all species.
At what number on the Turing scale is Apophis currently?
On December 27, 2004, Apophis was found in images before the discovery date, and the calculation of
its orbit could be fine-tuned, eliminating any possibility of a collision by 2029 and
reducing its threat category 4 to level 0. So don't worry; you can sleep easy tonight.
Apophis will not crash into the Earth, at least for now.
In 2006, during subsequent observations, some astronomers calculated that there was a
possibility that, during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis possibly passed through a
"gravitational lock," a precise region of space no more than 400 m in diameter around the Earth,
which they were placing it on a collision course for a future impact on April 13, 2036.
But new orbital calculations indicated that that impact probability would also be low,
ruling out a collision in 2036 and 2068, when the asteroid will pass close to Earth again.
In short, Apophis is not expected to hit Earth for at in this century. But we must
not confide since hundreds of thousands of NEOs out there have yet to be discovered. Could it
be that one of these days, Let's find one with a threat level of 8 to 10 on the Turing scale?
In that case, finding it as soon as possible would
be best. Why? Because the sooner we find it, the more time we will have
to try to divert it and thus prevent it from colliding with our beloved planet.
But how could we deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth?
That's something we'll talk about in a future video! Would you like us to
make a video on how to deflect asteroids? Let us know your opinion in the comments!