Apophis
December 7th, 2005
Scientists are encouraging governments to decide on a strategy to defend Earth against an attack from Apophis according to The Guardian. No, not that Apophis 
Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.
Apophis is a 390m wide asteroid which may hit Earth in 31 years time. Although it’s unlikely, scientists said they need to design, test and build defenses now if they are going to be able to build a suitable defense in time.
Apophis had been intermittently tracked since its discovery in June last year but, in December, it started causing serious concern. Projecting the orbit of the asteroid into the future, astronomers had calculated that the odds of it hitting the Earth in 2029 were alarming. As more observations came in, the odds got higher.
The chance of Apophis striking Earth at the moment is around 1 in 5,500. I wonder if that asteroid has a naqudah core.
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Is there any news on the composition of the asteriod? If it is a solid metal asteriod then there are many ways to deflect it.
Personally, i’m slightly more afraid of something like 1942DA hitting the Earth.
Test to make sure comments still work.
Wow that sounds louder than one of my farts
Giant Uber-magnet…sweet.
And if it isn’t quite metal enough…well…I got nothin’