A huge asteroid rushes to Earth: NASA announced the date of the collision

NASA has changed the dates of the collision of the Earth with the giant asteroid Apophis - the nearest date has already been postponed several times in the future.

Astronomers have corrected their calculations, notes Obozrevatel.

According to recent reports, a collision may occur:

• 12 April 2060 years
• 11 April 2065 years
• 12 April 2068 years
• 10 October 2068 of the year
• 13 April 2076 years
• 13 April 2077 years
• 13 April 2078 years
• 10 October 2089 of the year
• 13 April 2091 years
• 14 April 2103 of the year.

It is noted that on these dates the asteroid will approach the Earth at a very close distance and fly past it at a speed of approximately 21 060 km / h.

Recall that the diameter of Apophis is 325 meters, it weighs 280 million tons.

There is a small chance that the asteroid will fall into the six-meter hazard zone, where the planet’s gravitational field will change its trajectory. Then at the next return in the 2036 year, Apophis will touch our planet, the newspaper notes.

So, is the inevitable apocalypse really waiting for all of us?

The short answer is no. Air force. Asteroid Apophis really exists and is really approaching Earth.

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Verification of facts

It was opened in June 2004, and then made a lot of noise. According to the initial calculations, the probability of its collision with the Earth in 2029 was estimated at 2,7% - and this is very much, given the size and mass of a celestial body.

According to Russian media, the diameter of Apophis is 325 meters (in some editions, however, they turned into 325 kilometers). This is not entirely accurate: as it approaches the Earth, the dimensions of the asteroid are specified, and, according to the latest data, its diameter is 370 meters.

Anyway, in the event of its collision with Earth, the consequences for life on our planet will indeed be catastrophic and comparable to the explosion of a dozen of the most powerful atomic bombs created by Soviet scientists at the peak of the arms race.

It is also true that Apophis will approach the Earth not once, but several times. For the first time, it will pass our planet at a distance of only about 31,2 thousands of kilometers - and this is really 12 times less than the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and even a little closer than the orbits of some artificial communications satellites.

On this, however, truthful facts end and speculation and exaggeration begin.

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What really

Firstly, all illustrations showing the collision of an asteroid with the Earth are nothing more than a figment of the imagination of artists. Even any high-quality photographs of Apophis do not exist.

According to recent calculations, Apophis is approaching our planet at a speed of about 5,85 km / s - or a little more than 21 thousand km / h. These numbers sound impressive, but in fact it is quite a bit - by cosmic standards. Suffice it to say that all other celestial bodies that could potentially collide with the Earth are approaching us much faster.

The relatively low speed of Apophis makes it very difficult to accurately calculate its trajectory, so it is constantly being updated.

Initially, as already mentioned above, the catastrophe was predicted for the 2029 year - with a probability of 2,7%, this is approximately 1 to 37. However, two years later, in 2006, updated data appeared that did not confirm this forecast, completely eliminating the possibility of a collision. The apocalypse was "transferred" to the 2036.

However, this forecast did not last long. Already in the 2013 year, once again recounting the trajectory of Apophis, the scientists again "canceled" the coming Armageddon.

"At the moment, the chances of a collision are estimated at less than one in a million, which allows us with a high degree of confidence to eliminate a collision with the Earth in 2036," said Don Yomans, who oversees near-Earth objects tracking program at NASA.

“Our interest in the asteroid Apophis in the foreseeable future will be purely scientific in nature,” he added.

Since then, NASA continues to monitor Apophis. At the moment, based on the latest data, the probability of its collision with our planet in 2068 is estimated at the level of 0,000007 - or roughly 1 to 110 thousands.

For comparison - this is a thousand times less than the chance of any inhabitant of the planet to die as a result of a car accident, half the probability of dying from a bee sting and about the same as the chance of a sudden death from a dog bite.

Suffice it to say that in the list of celestial bodies that potentially threaten Earth with a collision, Apophis is not even among the top three most likely candidates, sitting in fifth place.

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