Armageddon is upon us, again
Permalink | December 7th, 2005
It’s name is Apophis — it’s an asteroid that’s 390m wide, and it could strike Earth. If it were to do so, it would release more than 100,000 times the energy of the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Of course, that’s if…
At the peak of concern, Apophis asteroid was placed at four out of 10 on the Torino scale - a measure of the threat posed by an NEO where 10 is a certain collision which could cause a global catastrophe. This was the highest of any asteroid in recorded history and it had a 1 in 37 chance of hitting the Earth. The threat of a collision in 2029 was eventually ruled out at the end of last year.
Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen’s University Belfast, said: “When it does pass close to us on April 13 2029, the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There’s a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, … the Earth’s gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us.” The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, is 1 in 5,500 based on current information.
In 2013, scientists will know for certain whether or not Apophis will collide with Earth, but until then, we should all party like it’s 1999, because it’s the end of the world as we know it … again.
[via Guardian UK]
