Asteroid 2004 MN4 was discovered by astronomers at the Kitt Peak Observatory (USA, Arizona) in 2004. July 19, 2005 received given name- Apophysis. Named after the ancient Egyptian god Apep - a mythical huge serpent who, living in the underworld, tries to destroy the Sun (Ra) during his night transition. There is a high probability that on April 13, 2036, an asteroid may collide with our planet.
According to scientists, in 2029 Apophis will pass at a distance of about 30 thousand kilometers from our planet. Under the influence of the Earth's gravitational field, the trajectory of its flight will change and, returning to 2036, it may fall onto the surface of the planet.
The date of the possible collision was calculated by an employee of the Petersburg state university Leonid Sokolov. This is April 13, 2036. Even if Apophis passes by, the likelihood of a collision in subsequent years will not only remain, but also increase. Crossing the Earth's orbit every seven years, asteroid 2004 MN4 inexorably reduces the distance to its surface.
It is not yet possible to calculate exactly where Apophis will end up if he is destined to fall to Earth. According to preliminary calculations, the probable fall zone starts from the Urals, passing along the Russian border with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, crosses the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Atlantic Ocean and ends near the coast of Africa.
What will happen if an ominous asteroid actually hits Earth?
According to astronomers, the size of Apophis reaches up to 415 m in diameter, and its mass is about 50 million tons. Having crashed into the surface of the planet at a speed of at least 16 km/s, it will cause an explosion with a capacity of about five hundred megatons (500,000,000 tons in TNT equivalent). For comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of about 20 kilotons (20,000 tons); power tested Soviet Union in 1961, on Novaya Zemlya, the thermonuclear “Tsar Bomba” (aka “Kuzka’s Mother”) was about 60 megatons; The explosion of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883 released the equivalent of 200 megatons of energy (while fragments of the island scattered over a distance of 500 km).
In any case, the explosion of an asteroid will cause colossal destruction over an area of thousands of square kilometers. Hundreds of cities could be subject to catastrophic destruction. It is possible that the number of victims will be in the hundreds of millions of people. The explosion will release huge amounts of dust into the atmosphere. And its fall into the ocean will lead to the formation of a crater 3 km deep and about 8 km in diameter. The consequences of the resulting tsunami will be terrible.
Currently, there are three centers on the planet whose activities are aimed at identifying space objects that pose a real threat to our planet. Two of them are located in the United States, and one is in Italy. Americans have 99% of all information. And they are in no hurry to share it. On the contrary, they are trying in every possible way to limit other countries’ access to the data they receive.
Thanks to their efforts, at the beginning of the 2000s, observational data on the geostationary orbit were closed to Russian scientists. In 2009, data on observations of fireballs entering the atmosphere were closed. In our country global system There is no tracking of dangerous space objects. And this worries many scientists.
There are about 7 thousand objects in space that are approaching our planet, and more than a thousand of them pose a real danger. And these are only the objects that were discovered. In addition to asteroids, comets pose a great danger. Especially those that move towards the Earth from the direction of the Sun. It is difficult to detect them, and the speed of comets is incomparably greater than the speed of asteroids. Even if it is possible to timely detect a comet flying towards the planet, there will be very little time to take any measures.
Currently, there are no weapons on Earth that could be effectively used to repel the fall of space objects onto the planet. And to create it, it is necessary to unite the efforts of all humanity. The Apophis asteroid can be considered as an object on which it is possible to work out joint actions to eliminate the asteroid danger.
Each country makes its own efforts. In Russia, the Lavochkin NGO is dealing with the problem of preventing a possible collision. In the period from 2012 to 2014, it is planned to send a research apparatus to the asteroid to study it in detail. And this device is being developed by NPO Lavochkin. If the mission is successful, the tracking accuracy of Apophis could be significantly improved. This will have a positive impact on calculations of its possible threat to our planet.
And yet, efforts to repel the threat from space must be combined. No country in the world will have a guarantee that, having achieved certain success in solving the problem, another country, having accurately calculated that a cosmic body should fall on its territory, will not deviate the trajectory of its movement. It will deflect not so that the object passes by the planet, but so that it falls into the territory of a potential enemy.
The Apophis meteorite, rapidly approaching the Earth, with a relatively low probability of falling on its surface, is potentially very dangerous for all life on the planet
A meteorite discovered in 2004, named Apophis (that was the name of the ancient Egyptian serpent god, the antipode of the sun god Ra), when colliding with the Earth can cause an explosion that will exceed the power of all nuclear bombs, available in the arsenal of humanity. This conclusion was made by the director of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Boris Shustov. The probability of this meeting, which is “scheduled” for 2036, however, is so low that world scientists They are not even in a hurry to join their efforts.
According to Shustov, if a 1-2 kilometer body collides with the Earth, it does not matter where it falls, the effect will be global. “If a body several hundred meters in size, the same 300-meter Apophis, falls, then the consequences will be of a regional scale - the affected area of such an asteroid is the area of an average European country,” Shustov said, speaking at a conference at Roscosmos Russian Academy Cosmonautics named after Tsiolkovsky.
According to Kirill Stikhno, an employee of the Lavochkin NGO, the result of the collision of the Apophis asteroid with the Earth could be an earthquake comparable in strength to the disaster in Haiti. “The consequences of asteroid impacts are not limited to the crater; many of them, when falling, cause shock air waves that sweep away everything in their path. Also, a fall may cause a seismic effect,” Stichno told Interfax on scientific conference at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
Shustov claims that the damaging factors from the fall of the astroid will be similar to the consequences of a nuclear explosion, with the exception of the absence of radiation. “The Apophis asteroid carries energy, the destructive power of which in TNT equivalent exceeds the power of all nuclear arsenals on Earth,” the scientist said. That is, in the event of a sad outcome, a region the size of a European country or, say, a city with an agglomeration - such as Moscow and the region will be wiped off the face of the planet (in this regard, it is interesting to recall the etymology of the name of the meteorite, Apophis or Apophis as a snake, as well as the coat of arms of Moscow with George, this conquering serpent, as well as the duties of the residents of the Russian capital to personally justify this coat of arms by standing guard over the planet). Thus, according to NASA, the force of the explosion could be almost two and a half times greater than the force of the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, which in 1883 almost drowned the Indonesian island on which it stood. And more than ten times the force of the explosion (or fall - depending on what exactly it was with) of the Tunguska meteorite.
At the same time, the scientist consoled that the fall of the Apophis asteroid will not lead to a “nuclear winter” and other global consequences, but will have consequences within the region. “We cannot yet say where the asteroid will fall. We can only talk about the probable zone of its fall,” the scientist said. He even presented a slide according to which the impact zone extends from the Urals, along the Russian border with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, through the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Atlantic Ocean and ends off the coast of Africa.
“The degree of threat from the asteroid is small, it is not as dangerous as journalists claim. The probability of Apophis falling to Earth is only one in 100 thousand,” Shustov said. He noted that with a greater degree of probability it is possible to predict the fall of an asteroid body to the earth in 800 years, and it is precisely something like this that should be feared.
Other Russian scientists share a similar opinion. The head of the Federal Space Agency, Anatoly Perminov, noted that today, when it is obvious that the threat of the fall of the Apophis asteroid, according to calculations, was not so great, the heads of the world's leading space agencies have ceased to pay due attention to this problem. “The fact is that the Apophis asteroid specifically is not very dangerous. But it is possible to test the system and create appropriate spacecraft,” added the head of Roscosmos. He said that “negotiations on this issue have already been held with the European Space Agency and the European Union.” “The matter did not go further than talk,” added Perminov.
How to avoid an explosion
However, the refusal of the world's scientific centers to cooperate in resolving this issue - or in finding ways to prevent similar problems in the future - does not in the least hinder the attempts of domestic scientists to figure everything out on their own. There were three ways to solve this issue. “An asteroid can be impacted impulsively, that is, by an explosion or impact, or it can be gravitational, by bringing a spacecraft of a certain mass towards it. The device, with its gravitational influence, will pull “Apophis” away from the Earth,” the already mentioned Stichno formulated two of the three methods.One of the first companies to respond to the problem was the Ukrainian State Clinical Hospital “Yuzhnoye” (Dnepropetrovsk). There they proposed using the upgraded Zenit launch vehicle (LV) to eliminate the threat of a collision between the Apophis asteroid and the Earth. As the scientific secretary of the scientific and technical council of the State Clinical Hospital Nikolai Slyunyaev told the Interfax agency in 2009, in particular, we are talking about the possibility of retrofitting Zenit with a new third stage to minimize Apophis getting into the so-called “gravity trap”, which is possible during the flight the asteroid will miss Earth in 2029, with an almost guaranteed chance of impact on its next flyby in 2036.
“The modernized Zenit, with its impulse, changes the trajectory of Apophis and minimizes the possibility of realizing the tragic scenario -2036,” explained the GKB representative. At the same time, according to Slyunyaev, in order to guarantee avoidance of a collision with an asteroid for the next 100 years, it is possible to equip Zenit with a third stage created on new technological principles. “A thousand times more powerful push from the rocket system changes the course of the asteroid so much that the probability of a collision in the next 100 years becomes zero,” he noted.
As the agency's interlocutor clarified, the plane in which Apophis moves, according to experts, is inclined to the equator by 3 degrees. “In this case, it is profitable to carry out launches from a sea cosmodrome near the equator, from where Zenit has launched since 1999,” said Slyunyaev. However, Slyunyaev also counted on help from the United States, Russia and the EU to implement the project.
But this measure is not very popular, in particular because there is a ban on withdrawal nuclear weapons into the space. So said the director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Finkelstein. True, according to him, “there is a very definite probability: if its trajectory passes through a ‘gate’ approximately 1.5 km in size, then in 2036 it will definitely ‘hit’ us.” Speaking about possible means of combating the asteroid and how humanity can prevent a catastrophe, the scientist emphasized that there are currently no ready-made means. However, he proposed something called a “gravity tractor.”
Another method has been proposed and is being developed research center named after Keldysh. Its director and concurrently the president of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, Anatoly Koroteev, proposed using already known laws of physics to change the asteroid’s flight path. Thus, a long flight of the spacecraft near Apophis can prevent its collision with the Earth. “If the spacecraft flies near Apophis, then not only will the asteroid influence the spacecraft, but the spacecraft will also influence it. And although the masses are incommensurable and the impact on the asteroid will be small, if you fly near it for a long time, then it can be diverted from the dangerous trajectory of approaching the Earth,” Koroteev told Interfax. Thus, the expert noted, in order to divert potentially dangerous object from the Earth, there is no need to exert force on it.
At the same time, Finkelstein reassured the residents of the country, saying that Roscosmos, together with the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Academy of Sciences, is beginning to develop an “anti-asteroid” program, in particular, among the immediate plans is the installation of a locator on the 70-meter telescope in Ussuriysk to receive signals reflected by cosmic bodies. “The Tunguska meteorite showed that the possibility of a collision between the Earth and astronomical bodies is not an invention of scientists, it is a reality,” he said. The scientist did not mention that the fact of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite - as well as its nature, its identification as a meteorite body itself - is still in doubt, and scientists around the world have not come to a consensus about what exactly happened in 1908 year.
Meanwhile, the Lavochkin NPO is developing a spacecraft to study Apophis, according to the director of the Institute space research RAS Academician Lev Zeleny, in 2029, the trajectory of the asteroid will pass quite close to the Earth, and it would be a sin not to take advantage of this for research purposes. In order to prevent a collision, further study of the asteroid is necessary. NPO named after Lavochkin is developing the device. By the way, the press secretary of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, Sergei Smirnov, claims that the first approach to the Earth will occur in 2012, and therefore, perhaps, we need to hurry up with the research of the cosmic body.
The threat is worse
Shustov never tires of intimidating citizens, and at his speech in Roscosmos at a meeting of the conference of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, he stated that a thousand asteroids ranging in size from 100 meters to several kilometers potentially threaten the Earth. “About 7 thousand objects approaching the Earth have been discovered, of which 1000 - 1200 are potentially dangerous. Of these, approximately 150 bodies are from 1 km in size, and about a thousand bodies are from 100 m to 1 km in size,” Shustov specified.According to him, almost all kilometer-long bodies have been discovered and are constantly being observed as part of NASA's Space Guard program. He explained that after the collision of the Earth with a 10-kilometer cosmic body, “all life on the planet may perish, but civilization for sure.” But asteroids of this size fall to Earth once every tens of millions of years.
"Within the limits of existence human civilization or human life Small bodies from 100 meters are more dangerous. Their danger is explained simply: they often fall. We need to take inventory of them, monitor them, and prepare for the consequences of a collision with such bodies,” said the head of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
On the other hand, it was the fall of the asteroid that allowed the emergence of human civilization, Shustov said. “You know the most popular hypothesis about the extinction of dinosaurs, which says that a body 10 km in size hit the Yucatan Peninsula and led to the extinction of 80% of all life on the planet. At that time, mammals occupied a subordinate position to dinosaurs, but dinosaurs, being cold-blooded, could not withstand the consequences of the collision, and mammals, including humans, entered a promising evolutionary branch. Here we can say thank you to the asteroid,” the scientist said.
According to preliminary estimates, Apophis could collapse on a strip 50 kilometers wide, running through Russia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America and extending further into the Atlantic. At a conference in San Francisco (USA), a group of astronomers, former astronauts and engineers was formed, which intends to prepare proposals for the creation of a special service at the UN by 2009.
It will determine the degree of danger of asteroid collisions with the Earth and will make decisions about sending a mission to change the trajectory of a cosmic body or evacuate the population in large areas of the planet. It is expected that by 2009 the UN will present an expanded report on space threats. Its authors will be American, Russian and European experts. After this, the global community must reassess the classification of space threats.
Duty horror story or...
“Even if the likelihood of an asteroid hitting Earth is low, we should consider it if the asteroid could cause significant damage. This is our direct responsibility. It would simply be irresponsible for us not to do this,” says Dr. Dan Barry, a former NASA astronaut who was part of the team.
The threat of meteorite danger has not been ignored by the press before, especially in the last 8 decades. There are more than enough reports that “November 28, 1925, the day of the Venerable Martyr Stephen, the Earth will fly onto the celestial axis.” After the threat of an apocalypse in the form of a global nuclear war receded into the background in the minds of the average person (I think unjustifiably), the asteroid danger and global warming have become the go-to horror stories of humanity.
At the same time, few people think that the Earth is bombarded every day by millions of cosmic bodies, and the probability of a collision with a sufficiently large object that can cause a serious catastrophe is estimated at 1 in 45 thousand, or less than two thousandths of a percent. To be captured by the Earth's gravitational field, an asteroid must literally leak through the eye of a needle - its trajectory must pass through a very narrow zone of near-Earth space, the width of which does not exceed a kilometer.
And yet, such catastrophes happen periodically, at least once every 100 million years. In the periods following meteorite impacts, up to 95% of biological species on the planet died out, and the landscape and ecosystem completely changed. Obviously, the survival of humanity in such conditions is unrealistic, because the duration of post-catastrophic changes exceeds millennia.
The date of the Apocalypse is Friday the 13th
The next candidate for the role of “global killer” was asteroid 2004 mn4, also known as Apophis-99942. This is an irregularly shaped celestial body measuring 150 by 300 meters and weighing more than a million tons, approaching the Earth at a speed of 75 thousand km/h. The estimated date of closest approach to our planet is April 13, 2036. Of course it will be Friday. According to preliminary estimates, the place where Apophis fell will be on a strip 50 kilometers wide, running through Russia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America and extending further into the Atlantic. The cities of Managua (Nicaragua), San Jose (Costa Rica) and Caracas (Venezuela) are located exactly on this strip, so they are in danger of a direct hit and complete destruction.
However, the other most likely crash site is a point in the ocean several thousand kilometers from the west coast of America. If Apophis falls into the ocean, a crater 2.7 kilometers deep and approximately 8 kilometers in diameter will form in this place, from which tsunami waves will run in all directions. As a result, say, the coast of Florida will be hit by 20-meter waves that will bombard the mainland for an hour. Fragmentation of a cosmic boulder rushing towards our planet is also not a panacea - the rain of large debris with an unpredictable trajectory of fall can cause a lot of trouble.
Egyptian demon
This asteroid is considered suspicious by many. Registered in astronomical catalogs in 2004, he, according to the tradition of naming celestial bodies after mythological characters, received the name of one of the most evil demons of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. And with the numbering, according to American numerologists, respected astronomers, to put it mildly, “messed up.” After all, three nines in a row is upside down well, you know what.
Over the next two years, NASA is going to allocate about $300 million to find ways to counter the meteorite threat. After all, so far only Hollywood offers them. If we leave the option with a dashing team consisting of Bruce Willis and a dozen ordinary American workers with a compact thermonuclear charge as obviously unrealistic, there is only one thing left: shooting up a celestial body with thermonuclear missiles in order to destroy it or “push” it from a dangerous orbit.
But to hit an asteroid with a rocket, you must at least know exactly the elements of its trajectory. At the same time, it is advisable to have an idea of where exactly to aim, otherwise, having received a nuclear bat “in the wrong place,” the asteroid will not leave the course that gives at least some hope of avoiding a collision by other measures, but on the contrary, it will land exactly on the “target.” It would be nice to know physical characteristics objects threatening the Earth, at least in order to have an idea of the type and power of the charge capable of destroying the object. Otherwise, no missile defense system will help here.
Operation Citadel 2036
NASA believes that the entire world community should lead the creation of “anti-asteroid defense”, and the coordinating role should be assigned to the UN. It remains to choose a method of protection, of which there are only two: destruction of a celestial body or removal from a dangerous orbit. For now, the US space agency is considering at the conceptual level the possibility of a manned expedition to the asteroid.
The astronaut will have to change the trajectory of an object that threatens the death of life on Earth and install a marker on it - a beacon, which will allow the orbit of the celestial body to be tracked with high accuracy. Scientists believe that this expedition will be significant both for science and for demonstrating the capabilities of humanity. Today we don't know enough about asteroids to develop the best strategy to counter them.
The European Space Agency, meanwhile, is trying to evaluate the stopping effect of earthly spacecraft. Scientists are planning a “Don Quixote” mission, within the framework of which they will launch 2 automatic spacecraft. One of them must crash into a safe place for the Earth. space object, and the second will film the collision and determine whether the trajectory of the celestial body has changed.
If it turns out that a collision with Apophis is inevitable, you can try to throw him off course - just enough so that he does not fall into the “eye of the needle”. According to calculations carried out by NASA, a simple “blank” weighing a ton, the so-called kinetic impactor, which should hit the asteroid at a speed of 8000 km/h, will do for this. By the way, a similar mission has already been carried out by the NASA Deep Impact space probe.
Russian scientists propose a different approach. Deliver thermonuclear charges should not be kamikazes, but real devices created on the basis of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, the development of which is currently being carried out by the Lavochkin NPO. They can be launched using Dnepr and Zenit launch vehicles; their peculiarity is the short preparation time for launch, since they originate from strategic ICBMs. Our scientists believe that up to two interceptors will be required to reliably destroy an asteroid or divert its orbit. According to their calculations, a nuclear charge of several tens of kilotons would be required against an asteroid with a diameter of up to 100 meters. Megaton class ammunition will be required against a celestial body up to a kilometer in size. The project has already received the working title “Citadel”. However, the listed measures, which are more of an emergency nature, do not exhaust the ways to combat the asteroid danger.
Space tractors
With a more systematic approach to the problem, a different solution is possible, which promises considerable benefits in the long term. It's about about possible towing dangerous asteroids to other orbits. Here, too, several approaches are possible. Firstly, this is the placement on a celestial body of an ion or plasma engine powered by an autonomous source - solar panels or a reactor.
However, several engines, running for several weeks, can change the speed of the asteroid by several centimeters per hour, which is enough to prevent a collision. Since any object has mass and, accordingly, attracts other objects, another option is also possible: a “gravity tractor” weighing a ton or more, using a solar-powered ion (or plasma) engine or hydrazine shunting engines, will hover at an altitude of a quarter kilometers above the surface of the asteroid.
The gravitational force of the spacecraft will gradually pull the asteroid away from its trajectory - in fact, the thrust of the engines (that is, several grams of force) will be partially transmitted over the course of a month celestial body. If we expand the scope of the problem a little, interesting possibilities emerge.
It is known that many cosmic bodies are composed mainly of metals (mainly ultra-pure iron and nickel) or of rocks that geologists would call valuable highly enriched ore. Theoretically, such asteroids, being transferred to convenient orbits, could be “melted down” in “cosmic blast furnaces,” fortunately, there is enough free energy from the Sun in free space. True, now the price of space metal castings will be almost “platinum”, but in the future, with the development of space transport systems, the situation may change.
Up ▲ — Reader reviews (42) — Write a review ▼ - Print version
Of course, all this is understandable, but where is the guarantee that the chosen operation will be done on time and that everything will work out, because no one is immune from mistakes. And this mistake could cost humanity its life. In addition, I read an article that clearly stated the fact that if an asteroid is knocked off course, it will return in the same orbit back to Earth after some time, and then a collision will be inevitable.
In short, we conclude that the same consideration awaits us as our progenitors.
P.S. We all die
With deepest condolences to humanity, Yana.
maybe a clash is inevitable, if people die, it will be only the evil ones...
There are many smart people in Russia, the USA, Japan and other countries that will definitely save us)Look at life with a positive attitude)
According to preliminary estimates, Apophis could collapse on a strip 50 kilometers wide, running through Russia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America and extending further into the Atlantic.
Does it mean that we are at risk? hmm...wonderful, but I thought that America is a magnet for all troubles, eh....
in fact, it’s a shame that all humanity is threatened with death, and our rulers divide oil and gas, start wars, etc. and so on.
I immediately remember the movie "Deep Impact"...(
I remember reading Nostradamus - he predicted the end of the world in 2029
Yes, it seems to me that everything will be normal, especially with such technical achievements
everything will be OK. that you are worried. There is still a lot of time until this moment. that they will come up with a thread. and there is no need to lose heart. we need to look at it positively.
| DRON | 14 August 2009, 16:28:41 |
It's time to go here to Mars
| basilcat | 2 March 2012, 12:36:04 |
| e-mail: [email protected], city: Nikolaev | |
Nonsense. God placed the Earth on solid foundations; it will never shake. I will never destroy people again, God also said after the flood. But by “turning away” the asteroids from the Earth (as they tried to turn the rivers back, and by building artificial seas and thereby changing the climate), people CAN destroy themselves. And no one is obliged to stop them, because... the principle of free will is all-encompassing and will not be abolished at the whim of people. The most terrible beast in the world for people is man himself.
This is not nonsense, disaster is inevitable!
everything will be fine. And if someone doesn’t believe then do it or
| amine | December 13, 2012, 21:00:25 |
| e-mail: [email protected], Moscow city | |
guys don't listen to them.
| Catherine | December 22, 2012, 20:41:44 |
Oh no! I hope we will be saved!
If we didn’t know any of this, life would be much better, at least we would think about pressing problems, I advise everyone not to think about it in their own way personal experience— I was so worried about December 21 that I gave myself a “panic attack”, which I still can’t get rid of
I want to live
people and believe in all this, even Apophis will fall. Ukraine will not care and I am sure that it will not fall because the operation will begin in 2020 to save the planet. I would be more afraid of what will happen in 2014
If an asteroid falls on America, it will not fall to the ground, believe me, America will be saved in any way, and it will also save other cities. Moreover, after 8 years, as NASA said, they have long since begun building huge spaceships, so if you believe them, we are flying to Mars
Which Mars will we fly to, who needs us, lice, who will think about us there? I also heard that the bumps (belly buttons) are building something for themselves, but..... One version is only real, if they can turn it away from the trajectory, otherwise we are all screwed and believe me, not only will no one save us, but they won’t even say anything so as not to cause panic.
| Zhenya | 31 October 2013, 21:49:13 |
| e-mail: [email protected], Moscow city | |
guys! that you are worried about your life ahead. doomsday is complete bullshit. (:super:)
| rvayavlrv | 7 November 2013, 12:49:33 |
| e-mail: | |
The probability of the Apophis asteroid colliding with Earth in 2036 is practically zero.
This opinion was expressed today at the 7th International Aerospace Congress by Viktor Shor, a leading employee of the Institute of Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, ITAR-TASS reports.
“In our opinion, when calculating the orbit (of the asteroid), non-gravitational acceleration was not taken into account - the “Yarkovsky effect,” explained Victor Shor. “This effect can greatly change the movement of Apophis.” According to the conclusion of Russian scientists, “the collision of the Earth with Apophis in 2036 has a vanishingly small probability” when taking into account the influence of the “Yarkovsky effect”.
The “Yarkovsky effect,” in particular, manifests itself in a change in the orbit of a body rotating around its axis under the influence of solar radiation, which leads to a rapid evolution of the orbit of cosmic bodies by astronomical standards.
The asteroid Apophis, discovered in 2004, the size of which, according to various estimates, ranges from 200 to 400 meters, has long caused concern among scientists due to the proximity of its passage near the Earth. According to scientists, Apophis will approach the Earth at a dangerous distance of 38 thousand kilometers on April 13, 2029 and may even be visible to the naked eye. However, the likelihood of Apophis colliding with our planet was predicted in 2036, and not in 2029. “Under the influence of the Earth’s gravity, the orbit of Apophis will change,” the expert explained. “The danger is that its orbit is not known accurately enough to calculate the further movement of the asteroid after approaching the Earth.”
"If an asteroid in 2029 year will pass through the so-called keyhole - a zone only 600 meters wide, then in 2036 it will most likely collide with the Earth. If not, it will fly by, and the danger will pass us,” - Director of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Shustov.
It is not possible to accurately predict the collision of an asteroid with the Earth. Observations from Earth and from space do not allow us to calculate the exact orbit and give a correct forecast 20 years in advance.
Currently, scientists Russian Institute Astronomy, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the USA and the University of Pisa are working to clarify the orbit of Apophis. As a representative of the Institute of Astronomy noted, the international scientific community differs in its assessment of the orbit of a dangerous cosmic body.
But even if Apophis does not collide with Earth in 2036, this danger could arise again in 2051, 2058, 2066, 2074 and 2089. Scientists estimate that the possible fall of an asteroid will cause enormous destruction over an area of thousands of square kilometers. The force of the impact will exceed the force of the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima. If it falls into the seas or large lakes, there will be numerous tsunamis. And all settlements, located close to the fall of a cosmic body, can be completely destroyed.
To prevent the possible fall of Apophis and other asteroids, various action scenarios are being developed.
"Science already offers many options. For example, deflecting the orbit of an asteroid through an impact with a special spacecraft or using a space minesweeper or solar sail. It is also proposed to destroy the asteroid nuclear explosion. All these methods are still far from real engineering development, and they all work when the orbit of the asteroid is well known. Therefore, in my opinion, the main task now is the “ordinary” task - observing asteroids, calculating their orbits and estimating the probability of collision. Only then do you need to think about how to divert the asteroid from the Earth,” said Andrei Finkelshtein, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in one of his comments.
