'Global killer' Where will Apophis target?

Experts are determining the fall of the Apophis -99942 meteorite when it travels at a speed of 45,000 km / hr and is approaching Earth. A large area stretching from Central America to the Pacific is at stake!

During the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco last week, a series of international scientists and astronomers warned of the risk of collisions and calling on the United Nations. plan to deal.

Impact ability: not small

In Egyptian mythology, Apophis is a demon that embodies destruction, death and chaos. It is an unsuitable name for meteorites 99942, with a diameter of about 390m and a weight of 20 million tons, discovered by scientists at Kitt Peak Observatory (Arizona State, USA) since 2004. According to calculations by the US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), with the current flight trajectory, Apophis will approach the Earth at a fairly close distance (16,000km) on Friday April 13, 2029.

At that time, Apophis's trajectory will be changed (curving 28 degrees) under the influence of gravity from the Earth. Through that change, scientists claim that Apophis will be able to fly over a special space called an " attractive keyhole " about 610 meters in diameter near Earth. If this theory came true, seven years later, around 3 am Sunday, April 13, 2036, Apophis would hit Earth.

The probability of a collision is 1 / 48,000, seems too small. But compared to it, it is much bigger than the possibility that you could be killed in a plane accident (1 / 354,319) or win a lottery. From the perspective of cosmology, this is enough for astronomers around the world to lose sleep to find countermeasures. ' If you wait until you know whether Apophis has crashed into Earth (2029), it is probably too late. ' - Mr. Russell Schweickart, former Apollo astronaut and founder of the Housing Association space exploration (ASE), affirmed.

Scientists hope for a " suicide attack " of the ship
space can propel the meteorite into an orbit (Photo: VZ)

'80,000 Hiroshima bombs '

Apophis is not big enough to ' push humans into eternal darkness ', but at speeds of more than 45,000 km / hour, the collision will release a huge amount of energy: 80,000 times the bomb's power. the nucleus destroyed Hiroshima (Japan) in 1945.

Where will Apophis land? While some organizations say it is not possible to determine exactly where the Apophis falls, Vzglyad quoted experts estimating the fall of Apophis to be a 50-kilometer stretch of land, stretching from Russia to Thailand. Binh Duong, Central America and the Atlantic Ocean. Central American cities such as Managua (Nicaragua), San Jose (Costa Rica) and Caracas (Venezuela) are located just above the falls, meaning they are threatened with complete destruction.

However, scientists believe that most likely meteorites will fall into the sea. If Apophis falls into the Atlantic Ocean, it will create a funnel hole 2.7km deep, 8km in diameter, and thus cause a tsunami. Consequently, Florida (USA) will be bombed by 20m high waves for an hour! Other calculations suggest that, despite falling, Apophis will also steal millions of lives, and cost about $ 400 billion.

' Don Quijote ' or ' Stronghold 2036 '?

How to save the Earth? Did a spaceship launch a nuclear bomb for a meteor that exploded like the movie superstar Bruce Willis once did in the blockbuster Armageddon (1998)?

For astronomers, that is merely a science fiction story. Moreover, a large meteorite will explode to create hundreds of thousands of debris falling all over the Earth, potentially equally devastating, like what is depicted in another Hollywood movie as Deep impact (1998).

Apophis Orbit (Photo: MSNBC)

According to US scientists, there is a much more feasible measure. It is to take a spaceship to fly in parallel with Apophis. Gravity from the weight of the ship will produce a slight pulling force, enough to push this dangerous asteroid off course, ' skip ' the Earth. According to astronaut Ed Lu, who has done many long-term space missions on the international space station, it will take about 12-15 days for the spacecraft to deflect an Apophis-sized asteroid. Scientists estimate the total cost of the project to save the Earth is about $ 300 million.

Among the European Space Agency's plans is the mission ' Don Quijote '. Accordingly, two automatic space devices will be launched, one is charged straight into Apophis, and the other will take a photo of the collision to determine whether the ' destroyer ' Apophis has changed the orbit. . Once it is certain that the collision is indispensable, humans can attack Apophis from the beginning, before it flies through the " fascinating keyhole ". According to NASA calculations, just a ' dynamic punch ' weighing 1 ton rushed into the meteorite at 8,000km / hour was able to push Apophis off the ' keyhole '.

Meanwhile, Russian scientists propose a plan to " Fortify the 2036 ": using the Apophis fuse bullet. There is no need for any suicide team to put these thermonuclear bullets on space because it is possible to use the Dnepr or Zenit missiles for very little time to boot.

Act

Over the next few months, ASE will organize a series of UN-supported workshops to assess and act in response to the Apophis threat. A group of astronomers, former astronauts and engineers will prepare proposals to set up a subsidiary of the United Nations in 2009 to change Apophis or . evacuation Large-scale population in dangerous areas. Also in 2009, a large-scale report on space hazards will be completed with the preparation of American, Russian and European experts. After hearing the report, the world community will classify this hazard and take action.

INTERMEDIATE (synthesized from Discovery News, Science.com, Reuters)

According to astronomers' calculations, the likelihood of the Earth being hit by a large meteorite is 1 / 1,000 years.Extremely large meteorites (800 meters wider) visit Earth once every 500,000 years.

In the last century, the most destructive collision was the explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in Siberia, Russia on June 30, 1908.An asteroid or comet explodes in the air at a distance of 5-10 km away from the Earth's surface, releasing 10-20 megaton of energy, equivalent to the largest US nuclear bomb ever detonated.The explosion destroyed more than 80 million trees on an area of ​​2,150km2.

Recently, on June 7, 2006, a meteor fell into the Troms region of Norway, causing an explosion equivalent to 100-500 tons of TNT, equal to 3% of the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.

From 1975-1992, the US satellite system observed 136 large meteorite explosions in the Earth's atmosphere.