Earth’s close encounter with giant asteroid Apophis is less than 3 years away

A giant asteroid named Apophis is set to make its unusual close encounter to Earth in exactly 900 days.

On Friday, April 13, 2029 asteroid Apophis will fly just 19,400 miles above Earth’s surface, closer than the “altitude of geostationary satellites.”

At its closest approach, Apophis will pass between Earth and the ring of geostationary satellites, which orbit at roughly 22,236 miles / 35,786 kilometers out.

And this distance will be less than 1/10th of the average between Earth and moon. Speaking about the size of the asteroid, it would be around 340 meters wide, roughly the size of three football fields.

This event is quite rare as an asteroid of this size passing this closer to Earth is assessed to happen only once every 5,000 to 10,000 years.

The close flyby is not expected to cause any impact on Earth as it will safely miss Earth. When it was first discovered by astronomers, fears were based on the idea of a gravitational keyhole. It is a narrow region in space where Earth’s gravity could change the asteroid path for future impact. But recent updates do not show such an impact.

Apophis is expected to be seen through naked eyes from various locations such as from parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and eastern South America.

Scientists are gearing up to study the asteroid from multiple angles: the European Space Agency’s RAMSES mission and NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX will both visit it directly, while the LUMIO CubeSat will keep watch from beyond the Moon.