After all, the 1,100 ft asteroid was named after the demon serpent who represented pure evil and chaos in ancient Egyptian mythology.
NASA identified it ‘as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth’, and in 2017, the space agency gave it a 2.7 percent chance of hitting Earth in 2029.
“Apophis’ gravity is about 250,000 times smaller than Earth’s. So, we think that events of much smaller magnitude could plausibly shake things up on its surface,” he said.
“Apophis quickly gained notoriety as an asteroid that could pose a serious threat to Earth when astronomers predicted that it would come uncomfortably close in [Friday, 13 April] 2029,” NASA explained.
Thankfully though, the risk of impact in either 2029, 2036, or 2068 was ruled out thanks to advancements in technology.
NASA used powerful radar observations to reestimate its danger with extreme precision.
After ‘refining the estimate of its orbit around the sun’ they confidently ruled out ‘any impact risk in 2068 and long after’.
“A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility anymore, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years,” said Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) in 2021.
“With the support of recent optical observations and additional radar observations, the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit has collapsed from hundreds of kilometers to just a handful of kilometers when projected to 2029.
“This greatly improved knowledge of its position in 2029 provides more certainty of its future motion, so we can now remove Apophis from the risk list.
“When I started working with asteroids after college, Apophis was the poster child for hazardous asteroids.
“There’s a certain sense of satisfaction to see it removed from the risk list, and we’re looking forward to the science we might uncover during its close approach in 2029.”
However, we might not be out of the woods just yet after Canadian astronomer Paul Wiegert said that if a ‘small object’ collides with the asteroid, it could change its course.
“The odds of an unseen small asteroid deflecting Apophis enough to direct it into a collision with Earth,” he added.
Thankfully, he clarified: “Given that only five percent of such impulses are in the correct direction to generate an Earth impact, the overall probability of a small impact directing Apophis into a collision with the Earth is less than one in two billion.”
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Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid six miles wide in diameter slammed into the planet, creating a huge crater and triggering tsunamis across the globe.
The devastating impact also created a huge amount of dust and debris, which blocked the Sun for long periods of time.
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It’s believed the asteroid – called the Chicxulub impactor – wiped out three-quarters of all species living on Earth at the time, including the dinosaurs, which were already thought to be declining in numbers before the cosmic event.
These days, asteroids and their path of travel are tracked by experts, but it doesn’t stop people worrying – and speculating – about what could happen if one as big as the Chicxulub impactor decided to crash into the planet.
Over on YouTube, AstroKobi created a video, discussing what would happen if the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs ended up hitting Earth today.
Sharing a simulation, the YouTuber explained: “The asteroid would enter our atmosphere, travelling 100 times faster than a commercial airplane, it strikes the surface with more explosive power than 10 billion atomic bombs.
“Anyone in central America or the southern United States would be killed instantly, 100-500 million people gone.
“Anyone within a 1500km radius of the impact zone would be killed by the sound wave alone.”
AstroKobi explained that tsunamis would flood coastlines and a large chunk of the population would drown from flooding.
They continued: “The impact would immediately trigger massive earthquakes around the globe, tsunamis would flood virtually all the coastlines on Earth, half of Earth’s population would drown due to flooding.
“Within 48 hours, Earth’s population would have dropped to around two billion, the only chance of survival would be to hide in underground bunkers.
“New Zealand is widely considered to be the best place on Earth to survive such an event. As a result, wealthy people have been obtaining citizenships to start building their underground bunkers.”
While another said: “If this happens new Zealand will be filled with people.”
Others pointed out that the asteroid might hit New Zealand, in which case it probably wouldn’t be the best place to go.
And a third simply commented: “So basically, we’re cooked.”
The asteroid, called Apophis, is set to closely pass our planet on two occasions in the next 12 years; once in 2029 before returning in 2036. And by closely we mean that in space terms, with it still some 37,399 kilometres from the planet.
The rock, which is also called asteroid 99942, was first found by astronomers 20 years ago and quickly labelled one of the more dangerous threats to Earth in terms of a future collision.
Now the man behind the research, Western University’s astronomer Paul Wiegert, has studied if there is a chance of the space rock hitting Earth in another way.
Worries existed that Apophis could collide with another asteroid, altering its course and re-directing it towards Earth.
Working with Benjamin Hyatt from University of Waterloo, the duo studied and mapped all 1.3 million known asteroids in the inner Solar System to see what chance there was of any worrisome collision.
Their findings were then published in the Planetary Science Journal.
Thankfully, Wiegert said: “We calculated the paths of all known asteroids using a detailed computer simulation of our Solar System and the possibility of such an unlikely event was evaluated.
“Fortunately, no such collisions are anticipated.”
Hyatt said: “Given how closely Apophis will pass Earth, there is a possible risk that a deflection from its current trajectory may move Apophis closer to impacting us.
“Hypothetically, another asteroid colliding with Apophis could cause such a deflection, motivating us to study this scenario however unlikely it may be.”
The closest encounter with another asteroid will be in December 2026, where it will pass asteroid 4544 Xanthus by less than 10,000km.
“Though a direct collision is ruled out, the encounter is close enough that material accompanying Xanthus (if any) could strike Apophis,” the paper says.
It concludes: “The likelihood of a known small Solar System body (or any material released therefrom) colliding with Apophis is extremely low. The most likely outcome of careful monitoring of the encounters between Apophis and the asteroids and comets discussed in this work is that no impact will be observed.
“The small probability of collision is however counterbalanced by disproportionately large consequences. Because of the hazard associated with even a small perturbation to this Earth-threatening asteroid, there is ample motivation to determine the risk as precisely as possible, and we encourage future efforts in that direction.”
The earliest predictions once Apophis was discovered said there was a 2.7 percent chance it hit the planet in 2029.
Good news, of course, that is seemingly no longer the case. It’s just the unknown asteroids we have to worry about now.
In all seriousness, 99942 Apophis, a massive 340-metre-wide asteroid that was named after the Egyptian God of chaos and destruction is in space, heading in our direction.
If it were to hit Earth, the impact is similar to 1,000 megatons of dynamite – but there’s been an update on its progress, or several, courtesy of NASA.
No, we’re not all heading towards certain death, but Apophis’ trajectory could be altered according to a new study that was published in The Planetary Science journal.
All it would take is an object as big as two-feet (0.6m), and it could start heading in a different direction, as Canadian astronomer Paul Wiegert and co-author Benjamin Hyatt looked into the odds of this happening.
If it were to hit one of these objects, it could push the asteroid towards our planet, set to hit it around the ‘keyholes’ of 2029.
However, before you start stockpiling and panicking, it’s worth noting that it could still collide with us at a later date (if at all), and for the ‘God of chaos’ to collide with us in 2029, it would need to hit something 3.4 metres in size.
Luckily, the odds of this happening are around 2.7 percent to be precise, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
But the asteroid is still on course to fly past us if all goes to plan, and if you’re interested in keeping up with its journey and its potential change of course, you can monitor it on NASA’s official website.
When discovered in 2004, it was identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth, but on the asteroid’s tracking page, it states: “A radar observation campaign in March 2021, combined with precise orbit analysis, allowed astronomers to conclude that there is no risk of Apophis impacting our planet for at least a century.”
Though it is worth noting that the new study was only published on 26 August.
Astronomer Wiegert explained: “The odds of an unseen small asteroid deflecting Apophis enough to direct it into a collision with Earth in 2029 are approximately 10-8.
“Given that only 5 percent of such impulses are in the correct direction to generate an Earth impact, the overall probability of a small impact directing Apophis into a collision with the Earth is less than one in two billion.”
While this is all good news, he did also issue somewhat of an ominous warning.
“An additional element of the story is that Apophis has been largely unmonitored by telescopes since May 2021 and will remain so through 2027,” Wiegert continued.
“This arises simply because of the relative geometry of Apophis, Earth, and the Sun, which puts the asteroid in the daytime sky for the time span in question,” he concluded.
Dubbed COWECP5 by scientists monitoring the space rock, it is set to enter Earth’s atmosphere shortly after 4pm today (3 December).
Thankfully the rock is tiny – just 27 inches wide, to be precise. But despite its size, the asteroid is still set to light up the skies when it enters the atmosphere.
This will happen at 11.15pm local time, which is 4.15pm GMT. Those within a few hundred kilometres of the entry point should be able to see a ‘very bright fireball’ light up the sky.
The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, designed and used by NASA and affectionately dubbed ATLAS, spotted the potential threat.
ATLAS can spot asteroids up to one week before they arrive on Earth, giving scientists time to respond if necessary.
With COWECP5, the asteroid was spotted by ATLAS just seven hours before it was going to hit Earth.
The Kitt Peak National Observatory, funded by NASA, also tracked the asteroid early on Tuesday.
Richard Moissl, the head of planetary defense office with the ESA, said the Kitt Peak system had calculated the asteroid’s ‘impact corridor’.
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, at Queen’s University Belfast, said the ability to detect this asteroid shows that humanity’s ability to protect itself from objects in space is getting stronger by the year.
“It’s a small one, but it will still be quite spectacular,” Fitzsimmons said. “It will be dark over the impact site and for several hundreds of kilometres around there’ll be a very impressive, very bright fireball in the sky.”
The first ever asteroid to be monitored being hitting Earth was tracked back in 2008. As a result, parts of the rock were recovered by scientists to study.
Fitzsimmons explained: “The beauty there was that the reflectivity of the meteorites exactly matched the reflectivity as measured by telescopes before it hit, showing you that really nice direct link between what we saw out there in space and what we then found later on, on the ground.”
The ATLAS system used to track this asteroid uses four telescopes that are dotted across the globe.
For future collisions, one 2017 study determined that an asteroid needs to be at least 60 feet wide to have any potentially lethal impacts for humanity. Let’s hope we never find one heading our way.
