In 2029, the 300-meter asteroid Apophis will fly very close to Earth.

[link to earth-chronicles.ru]


Ten years later, on April 15, 2029, the asteroid Apophis will fly past the Earth, almost hitting it.

It will be as close as some of our satellites, and just a few thousand kilometers from the Earth’s atmosphere. This team of scientists said at the conference on planetary defense IAA Planetary Defense Conference.

Most asteroids all the time fly close to Earth, but usually they never cross the orbit of the moon. However, Apophis is an exception. In 2029, it will be close enough to our planet. And given its diameter, which is about 300 meters, Apophis can be seen from Earth with the naked eye at the time of its passage.

A group of astronomers from the Kitt-Peak National Observatory discovered Apophis in June 2004. Astronomers were able to detect it only two days before technical and weather problems prevented further observations. Fortunately, in the same year a team of scientists from Australia saw Apophis again. Observations caused quite a stir: the first orbital calculations showed that the probability of an asteroid colliding with the Earth in 2029 is 2.7%. Fortunately, additional observations have excluded this possibility.

Due to the large size of this asteroid, we can fairly accurately predict its orbit as much as a decade ahead. This gives scientists time to prepare. There is a long list of scientific experiments that we could conduct and a decade to decide which ones are definitely worth doing.

Judging by the results of recent landings of the spacecraft on the asteroid Bennu and the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it is worth expecting that the intended landing on Apophis will be crowned with success. We could get new data about what asteroids are like, like Apophis, better imagine what the Solar System looked like billions of years ago, and also learn the history of our planet.