On April 13, 2029, a 370-meter wide asteroid formally known as 99942 Apophis will pass by Earth at a distance of about 19,000 miles.
While 19,000 miles sounds like a long way away, in astronomical terms it’s the equivalent of having a bullet whiz by your ear. There are man-made satellites that orbit farther from Earth.
Even scarier, it was initially believed there was a slight chance Apophis could strike the Earth in 2036. That’s why, when the asteroid and its trajectory was discovered in 2004, scientists named it after the Egyptian god of chaos who, by the way, is also the villain in the TV series “Stargate-SG1.”
Thankfully, that possibility has since been ruled out. Still, as the saying goes “There are plenty more where that came from,” in particular, in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The imminent threat of asteroid-caused destruction was the motivation behind a recent Planetary Defense Conference at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The purpose of the conference was to discuss “the threat to Earth posed by asteroids and comets, and actions that might be taken to deflect a threatening object.”