Asteroid Apophis the size of three football fields will pass close to Earth in 2029

An asteroid, the size of the Eiffel Tower that whizzed past the Earth on March 5 at 8:15 pm ET will return in the year 2029, making a flyby which will be at the closest distance ever recorded from Earth, scientists at NASA said in a release. Dubbed as ‘Apophis’ (that translates to ancient Egyptian demon), the 1,120 feet (340-meter-wide) wide rock composed of iron, nickel, and the rocks came at 10.4 million miles from Earth, about 44 times the distance between Earth and the moon. On April 13, 2029, the asteroid will pass through the zone of high-altitude satellites in a rare flyby so close that it will help scientists to study the shape of the celestial object. Discovered in 2004, Apophis won’t hit the Earth, contrary to the early predictions that were later ruled out by the scientists, but it will be in the closest vicinity of Earth for researchers to observe the rock’s surface features via a high-end telescope. 

“Asteroid 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid more than 1000 feet (over 300 meters) in size that will harmlessly pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029,” NASA informed, adding that the rock had created a stir as the estimates previously showed that it was going to hit the earth in one of the closest flybys ever recorded.

“After searching through some older astronomical images, scientists ruled out the possibility of a 2029 impact,” NASA continued. Researchers, meanwhile, now say that the asteroid will safely pass about 19,800 miles (31,900 kilometers) from our planet’s surface. “While that’s a safe distance, it’s close enough that the asteroid will come between Earth and our Moon,” NASA informed, adding that this distance implies that the asteroid will be close to some spacecraft orbiting the Earth. 

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Will appear to naked eye

“It’s rare for an asteroid of this size to pass so close to Earth, although smaller asteroids, in the range of 16 to 33 feet (5 to 10 meters), in size have been observed passing by at similar distances,” NASA said.

The space agency called the flyby of 2029 an ‘incredible opportunity’ for science. A radar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Marina Brozović, said in the release: ‘We’ll observe the asteroid with both optical and radar telescopes. With radar observations, we might be able to see surface details that are only a few meters in size.’ For the first time, Apophis will be visible to the astrophiles from the naked eye in the night sky of the southern hemisphere and will appear like a speck of light crossing the sky. “At its closest approach to Earth, just before 6 p.m. EDT, April 13, 2029, Apophis will be over the Atlantic Ocean. It will move so fast that it will cross the Atlantic in just an hour. By 7 p.m. EDT, the asteroid will have crossed over the United States,” NASA informed. 

[Credit: Twitter/@palomarskies]

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