An asteroid nicknamed after an Egyptian god of chaos is currently picking up speed as it hauls butt towards Earth. Normally, we would consider this pretty alarming news, but for 2020, it just seems par for the course at this point. The 1,082.68-foot wide object was named Apophis — the Egyptian serpent god obsessed with swallowing the Sun. The object was first discovered back in 2004 by researchers working at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. Since then, the team has been tracking the asteroid, and they’ve calculated that it will have a very close approach to our planet by 2029 before possibly hitting the Earth in 2068.
Initially, astronomers didn’t think there was any chance the object would make contact with the Earth in 2068; however, things changed after researchers learned the object was picking up speed. The asteroid is now under what’s known as the “Yarkovsky effect,” this means some parts of the rock are heating up faster than other parts. Researchers explained this new information in a press release:
“Prior to the detection of Yarkovsky acceleration on Apophis, astronomers had concluded that a potential impact with Earth in 2068 was impossible.
The detection of this effect acting on Apophis means that the 2068 impact scenario is still a possibility.”
Dave Tholen, a team member at the University of Hawaii, explained that the revelation came from images captured by the Subaru telescope earlier in the year (yup in 2020). He said:
“We have known for some time that an impact with Earth is not possible during the 2029 close approach.”
“The new observations… were good enough to reveal the Yarkovsky acceleration of Apophis, and they show that the asteroid is drifting away from a purely gravitational orbit by about 170 metres per year, which is enough to keep the 2068 impact scenario in play.”
#Apophis, the ‘God of Chaos’ #Asteroid is speeding up due to #Yarkovsky_Effect — Increasing the Likelihood of it Hitting Earth in 2068.#The_Yarkovsky_Effect makes it difficult to make long term Predictions about how an Asteroid will move over long Periods. pic.twitter.com/orV3fvGv20
— 🆂ci 🅼an (@_TheRam) October 28, 2020
Astronomers are now collecting more data to better understand the amplitude of the Yarkovsky effect and how it affects Apophis’s orbit to calculate the rock’s chances of hitting the Earth.
Meanwhile, scientists have decided to look on the bright side, as the astroid’s 2029 flyby will represent an extraordinary event for excited astronomers.
They literally named a massive asteroid that's heading for earth in 2068 after Apophis. This is why we can't have nice things.
— Babylon the Great (@emilyisdeadd) October 28, 2020
A Radar scientist working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, named Marina Brozović, describes Apophis as an “incredible opportunity for science.” She said:
“We’ll observe the asteroid with both optical and radar telescopes. With radar observations, we might be able to see surface details that are only a few meters in size.”
🌌 A @UHIfA astronomer has revealed critical new findings linked to a large asteroid expected to pass extremely close to Earth ➡️ https://t.co/9a6dooEeSj #UHMResearch pic.twitter.com/m4X2tFPPR5
— University of Hawaii at Manoa (@uhmanoa) October 28, 2020
And Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Objects Studies, said that the asteroid is a “representative of about 2,000 currently known potentially hazardous asteroids’, so its flyby could provide researchers with ‘important scientific knowledge that could one day be used for planetary defense.”
For more on this story, you can also check out a video at the bottom.
