7.6 billion people could see asteroid Apophis in 2029: Here’s the map

Three years ahead of asteroid Apophis's close but safe pass by Earth, scientists have already charted exactly when and where billions of people will be able to watch it cross the sky.

Michael Zeiler, a former mapmaker, and Richard Fienberg, an astronomer, gave visibility maps showing the path of the asteroid on April 13, 2029, at the "Apophis T-3 Years" workshop that took place in June at the University of Padua, Italy.

When will asteroid Apophis fly past Earth?

Based on their calculations, almost 7.6 billion people, which is about 90% of the world’s population, would be living in areas where the object can be observed through the naked eye, even though visibility will depend on cloudy weather and light pollution.

Known as the 99942 Apophis, this asteroid does not zoom across the sky like meteors do; instead, it will be seen as a steady point of light moving up to one lunar diameter per minute at its maximum speed.

"It will definitely be noticeable," Fienberg told Space, saying it will be slower than a satellite but still move in the sky throughout hours.

The maps revealed that the visibility period of the object will last for seven hours, from 11:00am to 6:00pm EDT, when it will start flying above Australia and finish its trip above the North Atlantic region.

Its maximum brightness will occur at 4:35pm EDT above Cameroon, where it will be most visible for 3.9 billion people in Africa, Asia, South America, and parts of Europe.

At the time of its discovery in 2004, calculations indicated that there was a probability of 1/37 that Apophis would collide with our planet in 2029. After two decades of better measurements, scientists have ruled out any possibility of a collision within the coming century.