Will the asteroid Apophis hit the Earth?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

For the past eight years, scientists have been observing a celestial body that is rapidly moving towards the Earth. It was first discovered from the Kitt Peak Observatory (Arizona) by astronomers David Jay Tolen, Roy A. Tucker and Fabrizio Bernardi. The asteroid was assigned the code "2004MN4". Soon, with the help of preliminary calculations, it was found that it has a radius of 320 meters, and on April 13, 2029 it will collide with the Earth and bring with it a deadly cataclysm. Therefore, already a year after its discovery, in 2005, the meteorite was given the threatening name of the ancient god - Apophis.

According to the calculations of astronomers, the probability of its collision with our planet is 3 to 100. As you can see, this is a rather small ratio. However, in the entire history of astronomy, there has not been such a celestial body that would have such opportunities for colliding with the Earth as the asteroid Apophis. But opinion is divided, and some astronomers believe otherwise.

Like any asteroid, Apophis moves around the Sun. It takes 323 days to fly around the entire orbit. The speed of movement is 37,000 km / h. Weight - 50 million tons. Radius - 320 m. Asteroid Apophis, photos of which have already been presentedNASA, has a surface speckled with small meteor impacts.

In the age of computer technology, the accuracy of astronomical calculations has been brought almost to the ideal, and scientists have figured out everything, right up to the point where the asteroid Apophis will fall. 2012, however, brought a lot of controversy to these very predictions. Some scientists claimed that it will collide with the Earth in 2029 in the west of North America, others - that in 2068 and on the territory of the Russian Federation.

But no matter how scientists argue, one thing is certain. If the asteroid Apophis falls to Earth, it will become a worldwide catastrophe. The death of civilization in a certain area is guaranteed. And even the end of all mankind is possible. The force of detonation in the event of a collision would be similar to the explosion of all nuclear weapons that are on our planet today.

Throughout the history of mankind, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, the end of the world has been predicted many times. And every time the prophecies turned out to be unjustified, but only caused panic among the population. According to some people, the asteroid Apophis is another needless panic. Astronomers who are prone to statistics believe that this celestial body can by no means collide with the Earth, since quite recently (by cosmic standards), almost a century ago, our planet was subjected to the strongest impact of the Tunguska meteorite, which unleashed its force on Siberia. In those days, the strongest cataclysms were observed: the so-called "nuclear winter", radiation and some changesclimate. According to "statisticians", such cataclysms cannot occur so often. And the next similar collision awaits the Earth not earlier than in ten centuries.

And, agreeing with this, in 2013, NASA astronomers refuted the initially announced probability of a collision of Apophis with the Earth, reducing it to 1 in 250,000. The figure is much more joyful.

But no matter how scientists argue, and no matter how comforting calculations and theories are put forward, the human mind will always think and expect something terrible from a potential threat, and panic. Remember that you can sincerely believe in the near end of the world, but the probability was and remains negligible.