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Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029.
On April 13, 229, Apophis will pass less than 20,000 miles (32,000 km) from our planet’s surface, closer than the distance of geosynchronous satellites. During that 2029 close approach, Apophis will be visible to observers on the ground in the eastern hemisphere without the aid of a telescope or binoculars.
It’s also an unprecedented opportunity for astronomers to get a close-up view of a solar system relic that is now just a scientific curiosity. And it is not an immediate hazard to our planet.
Apophis was discovered on June 19, 2004, by astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kit Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
The Kitt peak national observatory in Tucson, Arizona
They were only able to observe the asteroid for two days because of technical and weather problems. Fortunately, a team at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia spotted the asteroid again later in the same year.
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Since its discovery, optical and radar telescopes have tracked Apophis as it orbits the sun, and scientists are confident they know its future trajectory. NASA is redirecting a spacecraft to study the asteroid after completing its current mission to gather a sample of the asteroid Benu.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. In 2023, OSIRIS REx will be renamed OSIRIS Apophis Explorer, and OSIRIS Apex will be redirected to encounter Apophis during the asteroid’s 2029 Earth flyby. The OSIRIS apex will enter orbit around Apophis soon after the flyby, providing an unprecedented close-up look at the asteroid.
The spacecraft’s thrusters will be fired in an attempt to dislodge and study the dust and small rocks on and below Apophis’s surface. Apophis is about 1100ft, 340 meters in width. At its farthest, Apophis can reach a distance of about 2.
Abbreviated as Au is the distance from the sun to Earth. Away from Earth. It’s expected to safely pass close to Earth within 19,794 miles, or 31,860 km, from our planet’s surface on April 13, 2029.
This will be the closest approach to Earth by an asteroid of this size that scientists have known about in advance. The orbit of Apophis crosses the orbit of Earth. It completes an orbit around the sun in a little less than one Earth year, about 0.9 years.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. This places it in the group of Earth-crossing asteroids known as atens, whose orbits are smaller in width than the width of Earth’s orbit, or one Au.
As a result of its close encounter with Earth in 2029, the asteroid’s orbit will be widened to become slightly larger than the width of Earth’s orbit. At this point, it will be reclassified from the Arten group to the Apollo group, the group of Earth crossing asteroids with orbits wider than one Au. The asteroid wobbles as it spins about its short axis, typically rotating about once every 30 hours.
Sometimes there is also a rocking motion back and forth about its long axis as well, which occurs over a longer period than the short axis wobble. The technical term for this rocking motion is non-principal axis rotation. Apophis is classified as an S-type or stony-type asteroid made up of silicate or rocky materials and a mixture of metallic nickel and iron.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. Radar images suggest it is elongated and possibly has two lobes, making it look something like a peanut. Much more will be learned about this asteroid structure following its close flyby of Earth in 2029. Like all asteroids, Apophis is a remnant from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. It originated in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Over millions of years, its orbit was changed primarily by the gravitational influence of large planets like Jupiter, so that it now orbits the sun closer to Earth. As a result, Apophis is classified as a near-Earth asteroid as opposed to a main belt asteroid. How Apophis got its name Apophis is named for the demon serpent who personified evil and chaos in ancient Egyptian mythology.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. There are no high-resolution images of the surface of asteroid Apophis, but it is likely similar to the surfaces of other stony-type asteroids like Itokawa, the first asteroid from which samples were captured and brought to Earth for analysis. Asteroid 9942 Apophis is a near-earth object estimated to be about 1100 feet (340 meters) across.
When it was discovered in 2004, Apophis was identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. But that impact assessment changed after astronomers tracked Apophis, and its orbit became better-determined thanks to additional observations of Apophis. The risk of an impact in 2029 was later ruled out, as was the potential impact risk posed by another close approach in 2036 until March 2021.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. However, a small chance of impact in 2068 still remained. When Apophis made a distant flyby of Earth around March 5, 2021, astronomers took the opportunity to use powerful radar observations to refine the estimate of its orbit around the sun with extreme precision, enabling them to confidently rule 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 David Afanochia of Nasa’s Center for Nearearth Object Studies, which is managed by NasA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California.
With the support of recent optical observations and additional radar observations, the uncertainty in Apophis’s 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.
Apophis Asteroid is Coming Back to Earth | NASA has Confirmed its Bold Plan for 2029. Although Apophis made a recent close approach to Earth, it was still nearly 10.6 million miles (7 million km) away. Even so, we were able to acquire incredibly precise information about its distance to an accuracy of about 150 meters, said JPL scientist Marina Brozovich, who led the radar campaign. This campaign not only helped us rule out any impact risk,
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