Scientists say that a massive asteroid, larger than the Eiffel Tower, will skid past Earth in 2029, an event researchers initially took as a precedent for a devastating impact.
However, scientists are now taking this opportunity to study the large space rock, named 99942 Apophis, as it edges toward our planet in an effort to make improvements to our defenses against other asteroids. European Space Agency (ESA) officials announced plans to fund preparatory work on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Security and Safety (RAMSES), which involves a spacecraft being sent to glean information from the asteroid about its size, shape, mass and rotation through space.
Researchers are also looking to learn about its composition and internal structure as well as its orbit and how the space rock changes as it passes within 20,000 miles of Earth, about a tenth of the distance to the Moon , on April 13, 2029.
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“The flyby it does with Earth is absolutely unique,” said Dr Holger Krag, the head of the Esa’s space safety programme office, adding that no asteroid is expected to come as close for a few thousand years. “If the sky is clear, you should be able to see it with your naked eye.”
Apophis will come closer to Earth than the geostationary satellites that are utilized for television broadcasting, navigation systems and weather forecasting. This would be the point when Apophis will truly begin interacting with Earth, Dr. Krag said. “It’s the gravity field of the Earth that will basically slightly reshape the asteroid, causing it to change its form,” he said, adding Earth's gravitational pull could also cause landslides on the asteroid’s surface.
Ramses will act as an envoy, delivering information about the asteroid to help scientists better understand it and calculate the risks of space rocks as big as Apophis. “Our goal in planetary defence is not to do science on asteroids, but it’s to characterise them in a way that one day we can deflect them when they become dangerous,” he said.
Most asteroids that pass by Earth are largely harmless as they reside in fairly secure orbits, according to Professor Monica Grady of the Open University. However, Apophis is an Earth-crossing space rock, which is an entirely different story.
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“They come near the Earth, and there’s potential that one day one of them will hit the Earth and cause a major disaster. We believe this happened 65m years ago, when the dinosaurs were all wiped out,” she said. “And if it’s a big asteroid and it hits us, it’ll be a catastrophe which will destroy humanity.”
Apophis was reportedly discovered in 2004 and was a focus for many scientists who initially believed it would collide with Earth as it orbits the Sun. Nasa debunked those theories, concluding no such impact would occur as the space rock approached Earth in 2020 and 2036.
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