Musk warns Earth against anti-asteroid defense following news of "God of Chaos" – RT World News

Musk was responding to a tweet from his friend Joe Rogan, podcast host, who was sharing an article on the asteroid said "God of Chaos" from the Express, which seems to be publishing a dark new article on the subject. this particular asteroid every few weeks.

"Great name! Do not worry about this one, but a big rock will eventually hit the Earth and we currently have no defense", the founder of SpaceX said.

From the approximate size of four football pitches, if space rock were to touch the Earth, it would crush us with the force of 15,000 explosive nuclear weapons simultaneously.

However, Musk rightly warns that the entire story of Apophis is a little exaggerated: on its close flyby in 2029, the asteroid will be located within 37,600 km of our planet, only one-tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Scary but not quite apocalyptic.

The celestial mechanics department of the St. Petersburg State University had already warned that the 370-meter-wide asteroid could hit the Earth in 2068. In other words, its He manages to cross a "keyhole" area two meters wide, the space during his close flyby of the Earth in 2029 (with a probability of about one in 2, 3 million).

Although it will cross more than the width of the Full Moon in one minute, when it will scream in front of Earth on April 13, 2029, the asteroid, named after the Egyptian god of Evil and Destruction who lived in eternal darkness, will likely provide a magnificent spectacle for astronomers as the fate of all life on Earth.

NASA claims that from this future annunciator of the apocalypse, the "The international asteroid research community could not be more excited" about what the agency calls "An incredible opportunity for science."

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In fact, NASA will use the close flyby of 2029 as an opportunity for research and development to prepare its planetary defenses, which are so preoccupying Musk.

"By observing Apophis during its flight over 2029, we will gain important scientific knowledge that could one day be used for planetary defense", said Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS.

In fact, NASA and Musk's SpaceX are already developing their first mission to redirect an asteroid for the so-called double-asteroid redirection test, which will target the asteroid 65803 Didymos running June 2021 using the One of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets with $ 69 million to NASA. funding.

NASA admits, however, that there remains a small chance that this impacts the Earth; somewhere in the region of 1 in 100,000, "In many decades" Although more detailed future calculations should make the asteroid harmless for our planet.

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