99942 Apophis Astroid

Apophis is an asteroid which may strike earth in 2036, according to NASA. If so, this is the time left to impact.

There is still some time left to prepare.

Latest news on the ‘99942 Apophis’ Asteroid that was predicted to be on a near collision or ’swipe’ course with earth is back on track. The 99942 Apophis’s asteroid’s threat has not disappeared but seems to have newly emerged in the most recent NASA reports in this year - even a competition was held to design an unmanned space probe to ’shadow’ 99942 Apophis in order to figure out just what Apophis might do or is ‘thinking’ to do.

99942 Apophis, having been relegated to a 0 in 10 on the Torino scale threat with a 1 in 45,000 chance of impact on earth, is still held to be the same:

Using a computer simulation tool called NEOSim, it was estimated that the hypothetical impact of Apophis in the countries that are listed above and which are in the path of risk, would have more than 10 million casualties.

An impact several thousand miles off the West Coast of the US would also produce a devastating tsunami.

So, we ask ourselves, what is earth doing about this - especially since we all pay taxes to our governments who are supposed to protect us?

Earlier this year in 2008, the Planetary Society organized a $50,000 competition to design an unmanned space probe that would ’shadow’ Apophis for almost a year, taking measurements that would “determine whether it will impact Earth, thus helping governments decide whether to mount a deflection mission to alter its orbit.” The society received 37 entries from 20 countries on 6 continents.

The commercial competition was won by a design called ‘Foresight’ created by SpaceWorks Engineering. The craft is planned to be launched in 4 years from now - namely, in 2012.