For a long time, the body named 99942 Apophis was thought to have an impact.
Although an average of 17 asteroids reach Earth every day, only a tiny fraction of them pose any kind of problem. Most of them are either not heard about due to their negligible size and harmlessness, or, according to the law of large numbers, they are carried out in some ocean without having any effect on global processes.
Now, however, an unusually large object is approaching our planet, and although it will take another 5 years to get here, its size has already attracted the interest of representatives of related disciplines. The object named 99942 Apophis has a diameter of 340 meters, which rivals the size of the Eiffel Tower.
According to current calculations, the quasi-meeting will take place in 2029, when the asteroid will approach the Earth at a very small distance. For a long time, some astronomers thought that it might hit, but now it seems that it will not happen.
According to the most probable calculation, on April 13, 2029, 99942 Apophis will pass 32,000 kilometers from the surface of our planet. This may not seem very close at first, but it is only one-tenth of the distance from the Moon and closer to us than low-orbiting satellites.
The experts of the discipline want to use the event to conduct the most thorough examination of the object. The European Space Agency (ESA), according to a recent statement, wants to participate in the mission that aims to directly examine the formation.
I would like to know the size, mass, shape, internal structure of its orbit and the way it rotates, as well as how it will be affected by passing such a large body with its own gravitational field. The expedition will be called the Ramses Mission (Rapid Apophis Mission for Security and Safety).
It is conceivable that the event may even cause mass protests on Earth, but according to experts, we can learn a lot from it, which we can use in similar situations. Although it has been two decades since Apophis was discovered, it was only a few years ago that NASA dared to declare that it would not pose a threat to us in the next 100 years.
Nevertheless, our scientists want to be sure, and have launched missions such as DART, which once succeeded in preventing a similar, albeit smaller, event. Nevertheless, the method is unfortunately not completely risk-free. Some believe that such an intervention could cause even more trouble than it is trying to curb.
Whether the Ramses mission can start at all will be decided next year, depending on financial resources. If the mission gets the green light, the spacecraft carrying it out can set off at the beginning of 2028.
Source: www.pcwplus.hu
