An asteroid that ’s roughly the size of it of three football game fields is on data track to whiz past Earth on April 13 , 2029 . Fortunately for us , it is n’t in danger of gain our humble planet , accord toSpace.com .
The asteroid , which was discovered in 2004 , is cite Apophis after the Egyptian flavour of immorality and demolition . scientist antecedently propose that there was a 2.7 percent chance of it light upon Earth , but the odds were later reduced to “ less than one in a million,”Don Yeomans , a retired planetary scientist for NASA , saidin 2013 .
Indeed , if it were ever to collide with Earth , “ it would cause major damage to our satellite and likely to our civilization as well , ” according to a financial statement write out for the 2019 International Academy of Astronautics ’s Planetary Defense Conference [ PDF ] .
On the bright side , the asteroid is expected to put on quite the show . Because it will come within 19,000 mi of Earth — which is pretty close by heavenly standards — it will be visible to the naked eye . NASAsaysApophis will soar upwards over Australia before heading across the Indian Ocean , Africa , the Atlantic Ocean , and finally the United States . It will be seeable in the easterly U.S. by mid - dawning , but its faithful approaching will be just before 6 p.m. EDT . “ By 7 p.m. EDT , the asteroid will have crossed over the United States , ” NASA wrote in a instruction .
Here ’s what its track will look like :
Huge hunks of distance rockhurtlingtoward Earth are not only great fodder for action - pack smash hit pic ; they ’re also a corking style for scientist to larn more about these heavenly bodies . Although pocket-sized asteroid measuring 5 to 10 meters across sometimes fly by Earth , it ’s rare to get a penny-pinching - up tone at asteroids the size of Apophis .
“ The Apophis secretive attack in 2029 will be an incredible chance for science , ” Marina Brozović , a microwave radar scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , read in a statement . “ We ’ll watch over the asteroid with both optical and radar telescopes . With radar observation , we might be able to see surface details that are only a few m in size . ”
[ h / tSpace.com ]
