An asteroid will just miss us in 2029. Scientists are making the most of a rare opportunity

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SCIENCE & MEDICINE

An asteroid will just miss us in 2029. Scientists are making the most of a rare opportunity

BY CORINNE PURTILL | STAFF WRITER
FEB. 14, 2023 3 AM PT

To be clear: The asteroid is not going to hit us. ... There was a while there when it seemed like it could. Suffice to say those were heady days in the asteroid-tracking community. But as of March 2021, NASA has confirmed that there is absolutely zero chance the space rock known as 99942 Apophis will strike this planet for at least 100 years. So, phew. Cross that particular doomsday scenario off the list.

What remains true, however, is that on Friday, April 13, 2029, an asteroid wider than three football fields will pass closer to Earth than anything its size has come in recorded history.

An asteroid strike is a disaster; an asteroid flyby, an opportunity. And Apophis offers one of the best chances science has ever had to learn how the Earth came to be — and how we might one day prevent its destruction.

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Apophis was discovered in 2004. After calculating its potential orbits, astronomers were startled to realize it had a 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2029. In a nod to its horrifying potential, they named it Apophis, an Egyptian god of chaos. ... “We were shocked,” said Paul Chodas, who manages NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada-Flintridge. “That is very serious and, actually, a very unexpected and rare event.”

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