Coming Soon to a planet near you

mike65

Apophis to say "hi!" in 2029 and 2036

British space engineers will unveil designs today for a satellite that would rendezvous with and track Apophis, an asteroid that is on a potential collision course with Earth. Apophis will have a close encounter with the Earth in 2029 and could hit us when it swings by again in 2036.

Nasa has estimated that, if the asteroid hit the Earth, it would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.



Aerospace company Astrium will propose a mission today, called Apex, that would launch in 2013 to meet Apophis and study it in detail. It is being submitted to the Planetary Society, an international group of scientists and members of the public set up by Carl Sagan, which has offered a $50,000 prize for a mission designed to track Apophis.

Something to get excited about?

Mike.

slade_x

Kamchatkans and Venezuelans beware. A 20-million-tonne asteroid could be heading your way. Californians have even more reason to worry - the asteroid is more likely to hit the Pacific Ocean, triggering a tsunami that could devastate the west coast of North America.

These are among the scenarios projected for asteroid Apophis, which researchers now say has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting Earth on 13 April 2036. Calculations show it would strike somewhere along a narrow track that stretches eastward from Siberia to the west coast of Africa.

Compared to earlier estimates, the new figure represents a further reduction in the threat posed by Apophis (see Risk of asteroid smashing into Earth reduced). But the threat is real enough, experts argue, to merit a United Nations protocol for dealing with the problem.

"Someone will have to make a decision," says Russell Schweickart, a former Apollo astronaut and founder of the Association of Space Explorers. Because any plan for deflecting the asteroid away from Earth will need to be implemented well before an impact site is precisely known, he says, "this is inherently going to be an international decision".
Sky surveys

Beginning in the next few months, Schweickart's group will host a series of meetings to provide the UN with a 'decision process' for assessing and acting on the hazard posed by Apophis and other near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). A draft document ready for consideration by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is expected by 2009.
During the past 10 years, a concerted search effort by astronomers has led.....................

Continued

CiDeRmAn

Note to self, buy a really big umbrella, get it delivered April 2036.

stakey

... or starting building a bunker on the tallest mountain ya can find

User45701

i have my plans ive telling my mates for years that if i ever lose track of them they are to be a X location on 13th of april, my prediction is that unless deflected the astroid will be far to close, it will pass between the earth and the moon and be more than visable might **** with the tides (dont know about that anymore that tides article on apophis was quite a long time ago)

anyway

Big party is the plan drink drink drink and then smoke a bit chill out lie down and look up at the apophis as it roars accross the sky