Asteroid Named After Evil God of Darkness to Pass by Earth This Week
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It seems like almost every week there’s some news about an asteroid making a close pass by Earth or about the research scientists are conducting to prevent an Armageddon-like impact of an asteroid, like the recent idea to send it into orbit around the moon.
This story combines both as the Apophis asteroid — named after the Egyptian god of darkness and destruction — will pass Earth at a relatively close distance on Wednesday. During this event, researchers will take in various observations in an effort to be better predict if it will ever be on a more targeted course toward Earth in the future.
You might remember some previous headlines made by Apophis. It’s famous for the predictions that have been made about when and how likely it would be to hit Earth (or not). Here’s more on that from NASA:
Upon its discovery in 2004, Apophis was briefly estimated to have a 2.7% chance of impacting the Earth in 2029. Additional measurements later showed there was no impact risk at that time from the 210-330 meter (690-1080 foot) diameter object, identified spectroscopically as an Sq type similar to LL chondritic meteorites. However, there will be a historically close approach to the Earth, estimated to be a 1 in 800 year event (on average, for an object of that size).
While trajectory knowledge was substantially corrected by the Arecibo data, a small estimated chance of impact (less than 1 in 45,000 using standard dynamical models) remained for April 13, 2036.
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