Apophis is one of the 10 riskiest asteroids, according to the ESA.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Apophis, the Egyptian god of chaos and darkness is in the neighborhood again. Actually, it’s just a giant asteroid named after the ancient demonic snake deity, and it’s making a close approach of our planet.
Officially known as 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4), the space rock is wider than three football fields, and at one point, scientists estimated it had about a 3 percent chance of hitting Earth during an upcoming close pass in 2029.
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A 3 percent chance of impact might sound like pretty good odds, but when it comes to asteroids and other near-Earth objects, especially one as large as Apophis, that’s a terrifyingly high probability. For some context, Apophis could be about 10 times the size of the meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia in 2013, sending out shock waves that shattered thousands of windows on the ground, injuring hundreds.
Right now, according to the European Space Agency, only one known asteroid has a greater than one-in-a-hundred chance of hitting us. That’s little eight-meter (26 foot) wide asteroid 2010 RF12. It’s currently estimated to have about a 7 percent chance of impacting Earth in the year 2095. Of course, by then we might have more observations that reduce the chance of impact, and its small size means it would mostly burn up in the atmosphere anyhow (it would be significantly smaller than the 2013 Russian meteor).
This is all to say that Apophis is really scary by comparison. Fortunately, though, as scientists have observed the intimidating asteroid over the past decade, they’ve managed to rule out any possibility of impact in 2029 or during another close pass in 2036.
Its visit in 2029 will still be breathtakingly close, however, when it’ll pass by at an altitude comparable to that of some of our artificial satellites.
The big rock will also make a close approach on March 5, 2021. While it’ll remain more than 40 times farther out than the moon this time around, it’ll be the closest Apophis comes between now and 2029, and astronomers are taking advantage of the opportunity to study the potential bringer of chaos a little closer.
Professionals are already pointing telescopes at Apophis, but citizen scientists are also being encouraged to get the big rock in their sights.
“With the demise of the Arecibo telescope, it has become more difficult to accurately measure the position of asteroids during a flyby,” explains Franck Marchis, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute and chief scientific officer at Unistellar, which sells an autonomous smart telescope, eVscope. Marchis is encouraging eVscope owners to help observe Apophis later this month.
Scientists will be using this year’s flyby as a sort of test run for the big day in 2029, which’ll be a historic opportunity to observe a true cosmic big fella up close.
And it’ll also provide more data to hopefully rule out a potential impact in 2068. The odds of that happening are currently no better than one in 300,000, but it would always be better to bring that number down to zero.
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Next month you will be able to watch as a huge asteroid named after an ancient Egyptian god of chaos passes through Earth’s cosmic neighborhood.
On March 5, the Virtual Telescope Project will be hosting a live stream of the asteroid, dubbed “Apophis,” as it passes within around 10 million miles of Earth.
Clearly, there is no risk of a collision from this encounter. But while it sounds like a huge distance, this is relatively close in astronomical terms.
In addition, this is the closest look that scientists will get of the rock before it makes an extremely close approach to our planet on April 13, 2029—when it will be visible with the naked eye for several hours.
On this date, the space rock—which is estimated to measure more than 1,100 feet in diameter, nearly as tall as the Empire State Building in New York City—will come within around 20,000 miles of Earth. This is very close for an asteroid and equivalent to around 10 percent of the average distance between the Earth and the moon.
The encounter will be the closest approach by any object of this size that is currently known to science, according to NASA.
“This is something that occurs about once every 1,000 years, so obviously, it is generating a lot of interest,” Marina Brozović, a radar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Space.com.
Apophis was discovered in June 2004 by the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The object caught the attention of astronomers, who initially predicted that it had an uncomfortably high chance—2.7 percent—of colliding with the Earth in 2029. Such an impact would cause devastation on an enormous scale.
Impacts involving an object of this size occur roughly once every 80,000 years, according to a calculator created by researchers from Imperial College London in the U.K. and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
However, subsequent studies have found that there is practically no chance of the asteroid colliding with the Earth in 2029—or indeed in 2036 when it is scheduled to make another extremely close approach.
The most recent estimates have also reduced the risk of impact for its next close encounter with Earth in 2068, which were tiny but more than zero.
The chances of impact during the 2068 flyby are now estimated to be 1 in 380,000. Astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project predicts that this impact probability will probably fall to zero as future data collection helps scientists better understand the object’s trajectory.
On March 5, wave hello to the most infamous asteroid that won’t slam into Earth in 2029. Scientists sure will.
Astronomers first spotted the space rock now known as Apophis in 2004. It’s precisely the sort of object that most humans probably want to know about: It’s awfully big and occasionally comes uncomfortably close to Earth. April 13, 2029, is one such occasion, when Apophis will skim so close to Earth that it will pass through the realm of particularly high-altitude satellites.
(It will not hit Earth. Do not panic. Carry on.)
Scientists are excited. They’ve calculated just how rarely an object this large passes this close to Earth. “This something that occurs about once every 1,000 years, so obviously, it is generating a lot of interest,” Marina Brozović, a radar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Space.com.
Related: Huge asteroid Apophis flies by Earth on Friday the 13th in 2029, a lucky day for scientists
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The March flyby won’t be nearly as stunning as the 2029 close approach; Apophis will come only one-tenth of the average distance between the Earth and the sun, more than 40 times as distant as the moon is from Earth. But scientists have big goals for Apophis’ 2029 flyby, and in order to get the most out of that opportunity, they need to know as much as possible about the space rock.
And next month is their last real chance to study Apophis before the big day.
“Apophis in 2029 is going to be a really incredibly observing opportunity for us,” Brozović said. “But before we get to 2029, we are preparing.”
Meet Apophis
Like all near-Earth asteroids, Apophis has been rattling around the inner solar system for millennia, unnoticed by humans. Scientists believe it is more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) wide, around the height of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a mix of rock and metal, according to NASA, and may be shaped a bit like a peanut, two uneven lumps smooshed together.
Astronomers spotted Apophis for the first time in 2004. The asteroid’s discovery is a perfect example of planetary defense, the task dedicated to spotting asteroids around Earth, tracing their precise orbits, and determining whether they pose any risk of hitting Earth. Forewarned is forearmed, so the theory goes, and scientists hope that if they can identify a large future impactor with enough warning, humans can find a way to defend themselves.
Related: Defending Earth against dangerous asteroids: Q&A with NASA’s Lindley Johnson
And for a brief moment, Apophis seemed to run nearly 3% odds of colliding with Earth on April 13, 2029. (Even the best observations have some uncertainty, and the farther ahead in time an orbit is plotted, the more that uncertainty piles up.) That early concern inspired its name, which refers to an Egyptian “demon serpent who personified evil and chaos,” as NASA puts it.
Some of Apophis’ flybys are perfectly mundane, others quite close. But more precise observations pushed any collision fears first to 2036, then to 2068, when scientists can’t quite positively rule out a collision yet.
If Apophis and Earth ever do collide, hope you aren’t around to see the day. Two asteroids of note have hit Earth in the past century or so. One flattened the Siberian forests of Tunguska in 1908, the other shattered in the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.
They’re nothing compared to Apophis. “Apophis is 300 times more massive than Tunguska, 5,000 times more massive than Chelyabinsk, so this is an object that certainly gets your attention,” Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Space.com.
A natural experiment
Right now, Apophis is minding its own business like thousands of other pieces of cosmic rubble, trekking around the sun every 323.6 Earth days. Hurtling through space, the asteroid’s existence is utterly uneventful.
That will change.
Nine or so more loops around the sun for Apophis and eight more for Earth will bring the objects just within about 19,800 miles (31,900 kilometers). Scientists know that Apophis will not hit Earth this time. But depending on precisely how the two rocks whiz past each other, Apophis may never look the same.
The same gravity that keeps our mundane lives anchored to Earth’s surface will tug at Apophis throughout the close encounter. Scientists think there’s a chance Earth’s gravity will be strong enough to scatter boulders on the surface of Apophis, or perhaps even stretch the asteroid, as if it were saltwater taffy instead of rock.
How dramatic the stretch will be depends on a host of factors. First, the precise shape of Apophis. Then, its orientation during the flyby: If a broad side faces Earth, each patch feels less gravity; if a narrow head does, the asteroid is set up for a game of tug-of-war. Then, what’s inside: Solid, dense rock would resist Earth’s gravity more, a loose cluster of smaller boulders would give more.
Some of those characteristics scientists can study from Earth. But the interior of Apophis is impenetrable at a distance — except, perhaps, through the 2029 flyby.
“How Apophis itself responds, that’s physically about how Apophis is put together. And that’s something we don’t know — we don’t know how asteroids are put together, we’ve never been able to peer inside an asteroid,” Binzel said. “We see the asteroid outside looking in. This is a chance where we could have the asteroid inside looking out. In other words, is the inside of the asteroid revealing itself by some measurement we can make on the outside?”
It’s an incredible experiment arranged purely by the coincidences of orbits.
Related: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9’s epic crash with Jupiter in pictures
Scientists have been here once before. In 1993, astronomers spotted a new comet, dubbed Shoemaker-Levy 9 — only to realize the discovery was in fact a clutch of comet fragments, the debris of a comet that passed too close to massive Jupiter to survive the experience. But the real highlight? Those fragments were on course to slam into the planet the next year.
“The predictions for the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 ranged from nothing will happen — it’ll be a dud, a flop — to pretty much parallel to what we actually observed,” Binzel said. “There was enormous uncertainty as to what the outcome of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact was going to be simply because it challenged the state of our knowledge. And so the parallel with Apophis is that there is a wide range of predictions for what will happen physically to Apophis itself during the encounter: Apophis might go by the Earth and not care, or Apophis might go by the Earth and be tugged on so significantly that it seismically shakes.”
But in the 1990s, astronomers rallied spacecraft and telescopes alike to gawk at a week of collisions that scarred Jupiter’s clouds for a few weeks. All told, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 observations taught scientists about not just those comet fragments and the icy lump they once made up, but also about Jupiter and its atmosphere.
“I think Apophis is a lot like Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9: It’s an extremely rare natural experiment that we discovered with a short lead time,” Binzel said. “This is something that rarely happens. Nature is doing something amazing for us as a natural experiment, and the challenge is how do we take advantage of that natural experiment.”
And Apophis observations would tell scientists about a different flavor of close encounter than Shoemaker-Levy 9, since Earth’s gravity won’t be strong enough to tear the rock apart.
“It won’t cause this kind of big event but it is still meaningful to understand how the object can be affected by this a-little-bit-distant close flyby,” Yaeji Kim, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering at the University of Auburn in Alabama, told Space.com. “There is no object which has been observed in this kind of phenomenon. From that kind of view, Apophis is a really rare case.”
Related: Radar views show big asteroid 1998 OR2 tumbling in space ahead of Earth flyby (video)
Preparing for 2029
Making the most of the 2029 flyby will rely on baseline data: what scientists know about Apophis before its dramatic encounter with Earth. That means the observations gathered this year matter. Apophis will be at its closest to Earth this year on March 5 at 8:15 p.m. EST (0115 GMT on March 6).
“Closest” here is a relative term: the asteroid will remain a healthy 0.11 astronomical units (the average distance between the Earth and the sun, or about 93 million miles or 150 million km). That’s nearly 44 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
But that’s close enough for scientists’ most powerful tool for studying asteroids from Earth: planetary radar. Take a powerful radar beam, point it at a mysterious object, then wait. Use a sensitive radio telescope to catch the echo that bounces back, run it through some complicated processing, and the result is a sonogram-like image.
“We like asteroids that come close but, you know, just enough so that we can get a really good signal and we can get really great images,” Brozović said.
Related: Scientists just watched a newfound asteroid zoom by Earth. Then they saw its moon.
With good radar images, scientists can tell, for example what shape an asteroid is: potato, peanut, or even a pair of cherries bound only by gravity. Under particularly friendly circumstances, radar can detect boulders on the surface of a space rock. It also hones scientists’ ability to track an asteroid’s orbit.
Scientists’ top priority while preparing for the 2029 Apophis flyby is sharpening their view of the rock’s shape and its intricate rotations, Binzel said. “We know Apophis is in a very complicated spin state, it’s sort of spinning and tumbling at the same time,” he said. “The 2021 encounter gives us an epoch in time.”
When scientists look to make predictions about what precisely will happen to Apophis during the 2029 encounter, they’ll feed the current best wisdom of the object’s shape and twisted rotation into models — but the resulting predictions will only be as robust as the data.
Related: Losing Arecibo’s giant dish leaves humans more vulnerable to space rocks, scientists say
Inconveniently, Earth lost its most powerful planetary radar system in December, when Arecibo Observatory’s radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed. Each radar system has its strengths and weaknesses, and Arecibo would have shone during this preparatory close approach. Without it, scientists aren’t sure how much they’ll be able to improve existing radar observations of Apophis.
But they’ll try, thanks to the planetary radar system at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, which is due to study Apophis from March 3 to March 14 to cover this flyby. Researchers also hope to use the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to catch the echos, rather than having to switch Goldstone’s settings back and forth between send and receive; if they can use two telescopes, the data will be sharper.
“Arecibo was really a powerhouse, the most powerful radar on the planet, so we just can’t make that up,” Brozović said. “But we’re still going to get good data.”
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Huge ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid twice the size of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, will hurtle past Earth next month, NASA reveals
The asteroid – 231937 (2001 FO32) – was discovered by astronomers in 2001
It will be about 1.2 million miles from the Earth at its closest approach in March
This is about five times further out than the Moon but it is still classed as a risk
The rock is travelling around the Sun every 2.22 Earth years at about 77,000mph
‘Potentially hazardous’ applies to any large asteroid that comes within 4.5 million miles of the Earth and ‘could’ hit the planet at some point in the future
By Ryan Morrison For Mailonline
Published: | Updated:
A mile-wide asteroid twice the size of the world’s tallest building will pass Earth in March and has been dubbed ‘potentially hazardous’ by NASA.
The asteroid, named 231937 (2001 FO32), is unlikely to hit the Earth as it will be 1.2 million miles from the planet – five times further away than the Moon.
However, NASA dubs any space rock that comes within 93 million miles of us a ‘Near Earth Object’, which is three quarters of the 120 million-mile distance to Mars.
The mile-wide by half a mile-long space rock will make its closest approach to our planet at about 16:03 GMT on March 21. It has been branded ‘potentially hazardous’ as it ‘might’ hit the planet at some point in the future of the solar system.
Asteroid 231937 is the largest space rock to ‘come close’ to the Earth this year and at 1.7km is more than twice the size of the tallest building on Earth – the Burj Khalifa.
It should be possible to see the asteroid through an eight inch aperture telescope just after sunset on March 21 by looking slightly above the southern horizon.
Asteroid 231937 is the largest space rock to ‘come close’ to the Earth this year and at 1.7km is more than twice the size of the tallest building on Earth – the Burj Khalifa
NASA dubs any space rock that comes within 93 million miles of us a ‘Near Earth Object’, which is three quarters of the 120 million mile distance to Mars
The asteroid was first detected in 2001 by an array of telescopes in New Mexico that are part of the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program.
The MIT project is funded by the US Air Force and NASA and it detected the space rock on March 23, 2001 and has been under observation ever since.
Using those observations astronomers calculated its orbit, found how close it would get to Earth and determined it would be going at 77,000mph.
SpaceReference.org wrote of the asteroid: ‘Based on its brightness and the way it reflects light, 2001 FO32 is probably between 0.767 to 1.714 kilometers in diameter, making it larger than ~97% of asteroids but small compared to large asteroids.’
The asteroid and Earth are seen on the left of this orbital map on the ‘blue’ Earth orbit line – the orbit of the asteroid is visible through the tall white lines
It should be possible to see the asteroid through an eight inch aperture telescope just after sunset on March 21 by looking slightly above the southern horizon. The pink dot is the asteroid and the lighter area is the sky visible from the UK on March 21 after sunset
It may be possible to see the space rock as it hurtles past the planet in March if you have a telescope with an aperture of at least eight inches.
The asteroid will be low in the southern sky, so may be difficult to spot from the norther hemisphere, according to EarthSky.org.
To find it look just above the horizon in the southern sky will glide through the southern constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius.
It will be visible just above the horizon in the southern sky just after sunset if viewed from the UK and just before dawn if viewed from the southern US.
NASA keeps a close eye on all Near Earth Asteroids to determine whether any could come close to hitting the planet.
A massive mile wide asteroid twice the size of the tallest building in the world – the Burj Khalifa (pictured centre) – will ‘skim’ past the Earth in March
It is a broad definition – covering any object within about 93 million miles of the Earth – those dubbed ‘hazardous’ come within 4.6 million miles and are at least 500ft wide.
There are currently no asteroids that pose a significant risk to life on Earth for at least the next century, according to NASA, with just one having a 0.2 per cent chance of hitting the planet in 2185.
In the meantime space agencies around the world are investigating potential solutions for deflecting a future asteroid from hitting the Earth.
NASA has looked at using gravity from a flying spacecraft to ‘pull an asteroid’ to a new trajectory.
Astronomers are hunting for asteroids larger than 450ft as they can cause ‘catastrophic damage’
Researchers have discovered most of the asteroids that are about a kilometers in size, but are now on the hunt for those that are about 459ft (140m) – as they could cause catastrophic damage.
Although nobody knows when the next big impact will occur, scientists have found themselves under pressure to predict – and intercept – its arrival.
Artist’s impression pictured
‘Sooner or later we will get… a minor or major impact,’ said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt
It may not happen in our lifetime, he said, but ‘the risk that Earth will get hit in a devastating event one day is very high.’
If you’re looking for an out-of-this-world gift this Valentine’s Day, an auction house is offering up rare meteorite chunks from the moon, Mars and beyond — for as little as $250.
In an online sale beginning Tuesday, February 9, Christie’s auction house is auctioning off 72 meteorites — solid pieces of debris from celestial objects like comets and asteroids that arrive on Earth as shooting stars, somehow managing to survive their journey through our atmosphere to land on the surface.
“The weight of every known meteorite is less than the world’s annual output of gold, and this sale offers spectacular examples for every collector, available at estimates ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the auction house wrote on its website.
Included in the collection is a meteorite containing 7 billion-year-old stardust, space gems encased in iron and the fourth-largest slice of the moon. A large chunk of Martian rock, worth an estimated $30,000 to $50,000, holds bubbles of the planet’s atmosphere trapped inside.
“The Most Beautiful Extraterrestrial Substance Known — End piece of the Fukang Meteorite.” Estimate: $3,500 – 4,500.
Christie’s
According to Christie’s, there are a dozen samples from the moon and Mars, and another dozen previously housed by famous museums around the world.
“Everyone has an image in mind of how a meteorite ‘should look’ – an extraterrestrial body frictionally heated while punching through Earth’s atmosphere,” James Hyslop, head of science and natural history for Christie’s, said in a statement. “Rarely do the objects survive this fiery descent look like that shared ideal seen in this meteorite. It is a wonder to behold and an honor to have been entrusted with its sale.”
One object in the collection never hit the ground — a young boy in Morocco found the meteorite in the branches of a tree a day after a meteor shower — it’s worth an estimated $15,000 to $25,000. Yet another hailed from the U.S.’ largest meteorite shower in Odessa, Texas, expecting to fetch $40,000 to $60,000.
“If there was ever a time to be awed by the infiniteness of the night sky, we’re living in it, but if you want to inspire and see eyes widen — touch a meteorite,” said curator Darryl Pitt.
The auction house said that one of the highlights of the sale is a 16-pound “highly aesthetic oriented stone meteorite,” estimated to sell for $50,000 to $80,000.
“Unlike 99% of all other meteorites, this meteorite did not tumble or invert as it plunged to Earth but maintained a stable orientation throughout its descent,” the auction house said. “The surface that faced Earth showcases elongated flight marks that radiate outwards in this compelling, extraterrestrial aerodynamic form.”
The meteorites have been found all over the world, from the Sahara Desert to Chile to Russia.
The “Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites” auction runs until February 23, and interested buyers located in New York can see them in person, by appointment.
On May 10, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will leave the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and begin a nearly three year journey back to Earth, NASA officials announced this week.
The spacecraft, formally known as the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, is carrying a hefty sample it collected from the asteroid’s surface in October. The goal of the mission was to collect 60 grams or 2 ounces of material — and even though the scientists won’t know for sure until they open it, it appears the collection event exceeded this goal. Regolith is a layer of dust and broken rocks on the surface of asteroids and planets.
The sample from the asteroid could shed more light on the formation of the solar system and how elements like water may have been delivered to early Earth by impacts from these rocky leftovers.
When OSIRIS-REx departs Bennu in May, it will begin the 200 million mile trek back to Earth. It’s expected to deliver the sample to Earth on September 24, 2023.
The spacecraft first arrived for a close look at Bennu in 2018 and has been orbiting the asteroid ever since. And it’s going to take one last look at the asteroid before the spacecraft bids farewell to its single companion in space for the last few years.
In April, the spacecraft will conduct a final flyby of the asteroid to see how the spacecraft’s contact with Bennu’s surface may have altered the sample collection site.
Originally, OSIRIS-REx was scheduled to leave Bennu in March.
“Leaving Bennu’s vicinity in May puts us in the ‘sweet spot,’ when the departure maneuver will consume the least amount of the spacecraft’s onboard fuel,” said Michael Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.
“Nevertheless, with over 593 miles per hour (265 meters per second) of velocity change, this will be the largest propulsive maneuver conducted by OSIRIS-REx since the approach to Bennu in October 2018.”
The early April flyby wasn’t initially part of the mission, so a May departure allows more time for this last look.
If all goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx will fly over the sample site, called Nightingale, from two miles away.
When the sample collection head on the spacecraft’s arm descended to the asteroid’s surface in October, it actually sank about 1.6 feet beneath the material sitting on the asteroid. This was called the TAG, or Touch and Go, event.
The spacecraft also fired its thrusters to safely back away from the asteroid.
Both of these events likely kicked up material on the surface of the asteroid and changed the appearance of the Nightingale site.
This flyby will be similar to the observational ones OSIRIS-REx conducted of Bennu for about a year before the mission team decided on the right place to land and collect a sample.
The spacecraft will observe a full rotation of Bennu, including its northern and southern hemispheres and equator, and those images can be compared with the images it collected in 2019.
The flyby also serves as a good test for the scientific instruments on OSIRIS-REx, which may have been covered in dust during the sample collection. The spacecraft may have a future beyond this mission if everything is working in order since it will simply drop off the sample to Earth, not land back on the planet.
Once OSIRIS-REx approaches Earth in 2023, it will jettison the capsule containing the sample, which will shoot through Earth’s atmosphere and parachute down in the Utah desert.
A team will be ready to retrieve the sample from an aircraft hangar that will serve as a temporary clean room. The sample will then be whisked away to labs that are currently under construction at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“OSIRIS-REx has already provided incredible science,” said Lori Glaze, NASA’s director of planetary science, in a statement. “We’re really excited the mission is planning one more observation flyby of asteroid Bennu to provide new information about how the asteroid responded to TAG and to render a proper farewell.”
While NASA warns of another five space rocks headed towards the Earth, one Finnish astrophysicist is proposing human colonization of the asteroid belt itself within the next 15 years.
As the Earth lurches out of month one of 2021, NASA has issued a brief, advising that five more asteroids that are potentially between 25 and 100 meters (82 and 98 feet) in diameter are due for close flybys before the month is up.
On Tuesday, the 25-meter asteroid 2021 BD3, with a diameter roughly half that of the Arc de Triomphe’s height, will pass the planet at a safe distance of 3.9 million km (3.9 million miles). A short time later, an object dubbed 2021 AL, which measures 40m in diameter or roughly five London buses end-to-end, will whizz past at a distance of 4.1 million km.
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Next up, on Thursday January 28, will be the 40-meter space rock 2021 BZ, which will shoot past at 2.1 million km.
To round up a rocky start to the year, on January 29, asteroids 2021 AG7, which could be up to 100m in diameter or the same size as London’s Big Ben, and the 30-meter 2021 AF7 will pass the Earth at 4.2 million km and 6.8 million km, respectively.
Meanwhile, one forward-thinking astrophysicist proposes that, rather than asteroids coming to us, humans should instead colonize the asteroid belt, in as little as 15 years.
Dr. Pekka Janhunen, an astrophysicist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, has proposed the construction of habitable floating “mega-satellites” orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres, some 523 million kilometers from Earth, among the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
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Like something plucked straight from modern science fiction series, these disk-shaped settlements, linked by powerful magnets, would boast thousands of cylindrical structures which could house a total of 50,000 people who would all benefit from artificial gravity generated via floating cities’ slow rotation.
Janhunen also proposes space mining from Ceres as a means by which to set up an economy and make colonization profitable and sustainable, making use of space elevators to carry resources back to the pods and potentially back to Earth for processing.
