99942 Apophis exactly in Friday 13 April 2029 It will fly as close to our planet as any other object of this large diameter. Scientists believe that an asteroid of this size passes our planet at a similar distance on average once every 20 thousand years. A rock with a height of 330 meters will only approach us 30 thousand kilometers, which is 12 times closer than the moon. It’s in this space Hundreds of communications satellites.

Scientists have calculated that if it collides with our planet, it will generate an explosion force equal to 880 million tons of TNT. This is enough to create a crater with a diameter of 5 kilometers. Such an event could destroy an entire city, in addition to releasing large amounts of dust into the atmosphere, which could affect the amount of ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth. this means The possibility of extinction of many species of animals and plants in the world.

NASA wants to take advantage of this event. The plan assumes Send a probe to this object And constant monitoring of her flight time with the help of various observatories on the ground. Scientists hope to obtain valuable data on the composition of the asteroid and its interaction with Earth’s gravity or magnetic field.

This knowledge may allow us to build equipment for implementation in the future space miningLearn the history of the solar system or create a plan Defending humanity against such things. It would be an extraordinary event that we have not yet seen.

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“When the Earth’s gravity has the biggest impact on the asteroid, I think we’ll have real-time data Earthquakes or landslides on the body– explained Yong Joon Choi of the Korea Institute of Astronomy and Astronomy, who presented a plan to send a mission to Apophis.

However, if the asteroid changes its flight path at the last moment, scientists will likely have a technique It will save humanity from extinction. In late November, Elon Musk launched a mission to save Earth called DART. As part of that, the craft will perform a kinetic impact on the moon of an asteroid.

NASA wants to see in practice what could happen and when We will hit the asteroid with nuclear weapons. Is there a chance that we can slightly alter the course of its journey and thus save humanity? We’ll find out in the next couple of years.