It's hard to believe how this asteroid will get closer to Earth

As space agencies simulate the impact of an asteroid this week at the 2019 Global Defense Conference, a real asteroid they watch will appear in 10 years.

99942 Apophis is one of the most infamous objects close to the Earth. When astronomers from the Kitt Peak National Observatory discovered it in 2004, they had initially calculated a 2.7% chance of touching the Earth and assigned a level 4 to the Torino scale , the highest assignment ever attributed to an object close to the Earth. Since then, it has been downgraded and should not pose a threat to the planet, but it is a real version of the simulated asteroid scenarios currently being used by scientists.

"The close approach of Apophis in 2029 will be an incredible opportunity for science," Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a news release.

When Apophis flies over April 13, 2029, the asteroid of a width of 1,300 feet (340 meters) will approach shockingly, being less than 33,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. In comparison, the average distance between the Moon and the Earth is 384,400 km (238,855 miles). This will be a rare opportunity to study an asteroid closely.

You may be wondering how scientists can predict a 2.7% chance of impact, ward off the danger of an asteroid of this size and worry. Unique observations and models have error bars, a scattering of potential locations of the asteroid. You can see that only a few observations of an object within a 20 000 km radius of the Earth could suggest a potential impact. But more observations reduce the error bars and the number of potential paths.

To date, researchers have done enough observations on Apophis to rule out a strike in 2029 and its passage again in 2036. The probabilities are more difficult to calculate for close-up approaches, but for the moment, this is the only way to do this. 39, asteroid is not worth worrying about. Scientists will instead discuss the value they can draw from the near – approach and they should send a mission to study the asteroid.

But more generally, the impact of asteroids is a source of concern. At the global defense conference this week, NASA, FEMA and other agencies are simulating a situation quite similar to that discovered in 2004 by Apophis. But they discuss more than just the best way to observe the asteroid. They are also wondering what to do if a real threat to the Earth becomes imminent.

Mankind still has a long way to go before they can trust their ability to handle an imminent strike from an asteroid. As we have written, there are many asteroids that we have not yet discovered and potential inaccuracies in the data that scientists have already collected. But for now, I guess we should be grateful that scientists take the potential impacts of asteroids seriously.