19,000 miles is rather close. That’s within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.
Fyrefawx on
I’ve long thought that this would be the one to actually hit us. I hope I’m wrong but it’s coming extremely close .
PuppetmanInBC on
The plot of the movie Greenland comes to mind – the asteroid is supposed to miss, until it doesn’t. Great “we’re fucked” movie.
RestorativeAlly on
I think if it were going to hit and we knew it, we’d be told it was certain to be a near miss until the last minute. Preparations would quietly be made in full knowledge that most could not be saved. Society would be notified (if at all) only after it was deemed irrelevant to preparations to do so. Keep a good bottle and lawn chair on hand just in case.
whatyoucallmetoday on
Everyone needs to start driving carefully.
Maybe it is not that type of collision.
simcoder on
Seems like a collision could also “push” it further away from collision with Earth.
runningray on
After the DART mission I’m less worried about things like this. Let’s say a small mass asteroid crashes into Apophis and it starts towards Earth (mind you this less than 1 in a million chance here), we will just hit it again with our own impactors which seem to work and push it ‘behind’ the orbit of Earth.
Patrickme on
In other words, collisions would change chance of ‘God of Destruction’ asteroid Apophis hitting Earth.
8 Comments
19,000 miles is rather close. That’s within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.
I’ve long thought that this would be the one to actually hit us. I hope I’m wrong but it’s coming extremely close .
The plot of the movie Greenland comes to mind – the asteroid is supposed to miss, until it doesn’t. Great “we’re fucked” movie.
I think if it were going to hit and we knew it, we’d be told it was certain to be a near miss until the last minute. Preparations would quietly be made in full knowledge that most could not be saved. Society would be notified (if at all) only after it was deemed irrelevant to preparations to do so. Keep a good bottle and lawn chair on hand just in case.
Everyone needs to start driving carefully.
Maybe it is not that type of collision.
Seems like a collision could also “push” it further away from collision with Earth.
After the DART mission I’m less worried about things like this. Let’s say a small mass asteroid crashes into Apophis and it starts towards Earth (mind you this less than 1 in a million chance here), we will just hit it again with our own impactors which seem to work and push it ‘behind’ the orbit of Earth.
In other words, collisions would change chance of ‘God of Destruction’ asteroid Apophis hitting Earth.
No shit, clickbait.