Scientists and astronomers are closely watching the asteroid Apophis as it approaches Earth

This year has been a hugely active year for asteroid and comet news with NASA’s OSIRIS-REX touching asteroid Bennu last month and a veritable flurry of comets whizzing past our Big Blue Marble like F3 Neowise, F8 Swan, P1 Neowise, M3 Atlas and S3 Erasmus coming to the skies this fall.

Now a team of astronomers from the University of Hawai’i warns that there is a slim chance that an asteroid named in honor of Apophis, the Egyptian god of chaos, could come into close contact with Earth 48 years from now in 2068. Recent Observations have seen slight alterations in the orbit of the looming asteroid, and although the cause for concern is firmly in the minds of scientists, the actual chances of a collision are still very remote.

“We have long known that an impact with the Earth is not possible during the close approach of 2029. The new observations we obtained with the Subaru telescope earlier this year were good enough to reveal the Yarkovsky acceleration of Apophis, ”explained astronomer Dave Tholen of the University of Hawaii.

“They show that the asteroid is moving away from a purely gravitational orbit of about 170 meters per year, which is enough to keep the 2068 impact scenario in play.”

Tholen and his team first discovered Apophis in 2004, and the darting space rock is actually first predicted beyond Earth in 2029 in a completely harmless transit with zero opportunity for anything dramatic. At its closest approach on April 13, 2029, Apophis will zoom so close to Earth that the 1,000-foot-wide body will navigate between our world and its external network of communications satellites and may even be visible using our unaided eyes.

The findings by Tholen and his team were presented at a 2020 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, where they revealed that they have been tracking and closely monitoring Apophis’ moving orbit since 2004.

In an orbital process called the Yarkovsky effect, astronomers found that Apophis slightly increased its speed.

This slight increase is caused by the surfaces of asteroids heating up during the day and cooling down at night, emitting radiation like heat that acts like a mini-thruster and causing the spinning asteroids to sometimes roam widely in their orbits. This obviously makes it difficult for scientists to accurately predict the long-term risks to our planet.

International space agencies continuously monitor celestial objects that could pose a threat, something that is essential when dealing with an asteroid with Apophis characteristics that has a tiny but real chance of inflicting damage.

To help combat future asteroid intruders and in a perfectly timed operation, NASA and SpaceX are launching the DART mission in 2021, which will serve as a hands-on exercise where small spacecraft could be used to knock out and deflect dangerous rogue space rocks. from the earth.