An asteroid named after a god of chaos is heading toward Earth — but there is no need to panic just yet.
The massive rock is arriving for a historic flyby rather than a disaster, according to NASA. The encounter is still a few years away, but when it finally arrives, it will be so close that spotting it won’t even require a telescope.
Known as 99942 Apophis, the rare asteroid is expected to “safely pass” within 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029, representing one of the closest approaches ever recorded for a celestial object of this size.
“Even though Apophis does not pose any immediate risk to Earth, an asteroid of its size passing so close to our planet is a very rare event,” NASA astronomers stated. “Scientists across the globe are excited to use this opportunity to study Apophis in detail.“
At roughly 1,115 feet wide, the asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the satellites orbiting in geosynchronous altitude, according to NASA.
It will be the closest approach of an asteroid of this size that humans have ever been aware of in advance, according to the European Space Agency.
The rare timing of the flyby — falling on Friday, April 13, in many parts of the world, has already sparked a mix of excitement and superstition across social media.
“Do you expect the god of death to arrive on a regular boring Friday?” one Reddit user joked.
Another commented: “I try not to be superstitious but come on!”
The asteroid was named after the ancient Egyptian god of evil and destruction. The name was proposed by its discoverers — astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen and Fabrizio Bernardi of the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona — because Apophis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god known as Apep.
Tholen said at the time that this “seemed like an appropriate name for such a potentially destructive asteroid.”
NASA reports that an asteroid of this scale passes this close to Earth only once every few thousand years on average, making it a potentially unprecedented event in recorded human history.
When it was first discovered in 2004, astronomers labeled Apophis a potential impact threat for Earth in 2029, 2036 or 2068. NASA has since ruled out a collision for at least the next 100 years, after tracking the asteroid’s orbit with optical telescopes and ground-based radar.
Observers in the Eastern Hemisphere will be able to see the asteroid without the aid of a telescope or binoculars, weather permitting, according to NASA. During the flyby, Earth’s gravitational pull is expected to “pull, twist and stretch” the asteroid, potentially causing small landslides on its surface and altering its orbit and rotation.
Apophis is a stony-type asteroid made of silicate materials and a mixture of nickel and iron. It is a relic of the early solar system, formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from raw material that never became part of a planet, NASA reported.
NASA has redirected its OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft to rendezvous with Apophis shortly after the flyby to study how the asteroid is affected by Earth’s gravity.
The European Space Agency is launching the Ramses mission to accompany the asteroid during its closest approach.
These missions aim to study the asteroid’s internal structure and physical properties to better understand near-Earth objects.
