Scientists Concerned About Possible Asteroid Hit in 2036

Posted on December 11, 2005

The Guardian reports that scientists are concerned that a 390-meter wide asteroid named Apophis has an outside chance of hitting Earth and causing devastation in 2036.

Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, 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.
And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide. At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid. Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: "It's a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth's atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one."
Apophis had been intermittently tracked since its discovery in June last year but, in December, it started causing serious concern. Projecting the orbit of the asteroid into the future, astronomers had calculated that the odds of it hitting the Earth in 2029 were alarming. As more observations came in, the odds got higher.

30 years is not as long as it sounds when technology is considered -- because our technology is not advanced enough to deal with asteroids we actually don't have much time to prepare. The Earth Impact Risk Summary for Apophis can be found here. The current impact probability shows just a 1 in 5,560 chance the asteroid will hit Earth so the odds are in our favor. But it is better to be safe than sorry and it is time to come up with a strategy to remove the risk of Earth being wiped out by an asteroid.

Apophis is aptly named. The Guardian said Apophis was the "ancient spirit of evil and destruction" in Egyptian mythology. TourEgypt.net has more about Apophis.

Apophis (Egyptian Apep) was the great adversary of the sun god, Re. and was the very embodiment of the powers of dissolution, darkness and non-being. Hence, he was a sort of void or "black hole" forcing those he swallowed into that non-existence which the Egyptians feared so greatly.

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