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 3. Science & Astronomy


INFAMOUS ASTEROID APOPHIS 'REDISCOVERED' AS SCIENTISTS TEST ASTEROID DEFENSE
MECHANISMS

By Keith Cooper
published June 06, 2022

The asteroid, which was once thought to be a risk to Earth in 2029, was the
perfect test subject during its recent close approach.

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An artist's impression of a potentially hazardous asteroid passing close to
Earth. (Image credit: Juan Gartner via Getty Images)

A test of whether asteroid defense systems could spot a potentially hazardous
near-Earth asteroid on its closest approach successfully "rediscovered" the
infamous asteroid 99942 Apophis, which will make a close encounter with our
planet in 2029.



For this asteroid defense exercise, all previous data on Apophis were made
inaccessible. This meant that astronomers had to start afresh during the
asteroid's close approach, which began in December 2020 and culminated in March
2021. Would Apophis slip through the net, or could our network of sky surveys
find it?



Many asteroid-hunting surveys, which routinely scan the sky for potentially
hazardous asteroids, were involved in the project, which included over 100
scientists from 18 countries. 




Related: Planetary defense experts use infamous asteroid Apophis to practice
spotting dangerous space rocks



Apophis caused a stir when it was first discovered back in 2004. At that time,
the asteroid's orbit was not known well enough to rule out an impact with Earth
in 2029 or 2036. The B612 Foundation, a nonprofit that supports research and
technologies for mapping and navigating the solar system, publicized the
potential danger posed by Apophis, but refined calculations of its orbit have
since ruled out the possibility of an impact anytime soon.



Now, astronomers were tasked with doing this again to prove their ability to
quickly identify and then assess the hazard posed by any future discovery of a
potentially dangerous asteroid. 

The project "stress-tested the entire planetary defense response chain, from
initial detection, to orbit determination, to measuring the asteroid's physical
characteristics and even determining if and where it might hit Earth," Vishnu
Reddy, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory who led the campaign, said in a NASA statement.



The path of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it came within 20,000 miles (32,000
kilometers) of Earth. The ring of geostationary satellites is shown for
comparison. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech)

During the test, Apophis was spotted first by the Catalina Sky Survey in
Arizona, with subsequent detections from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last
Alert System (ATLAS) — which has observatories in Chile, Hawaii and South Africa
— and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in
Hawaii. Perhaps the most important measurements were from NASA's Near-Earth
Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft, which used its
thermal vision to accurately measure the size and shape of Apophis. It
identified Apophis as an elongated object with a diameter of 886 to 1,345 feet
(270 to 410 meters). 

Based on NEOWISE's measurements, scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in
California got a better estimate of the energy that would be unleashed if
Apophis were to collide with Earth. They calculated that an impact would carry
approximately 8.5 x 10^19 joules of energy, which is equivalent to 20 million
kilotons of TNT and 10,000 times more powerful than the Chelyabinsk meteor
airburst over Russia in 2013. The damage wrought by Apophis would be
devastating, but only on a regional scale; it is not massive enough to cause the
global extinction of human life. 

By Dec. 23, 2020, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center,
which is the collecting body for all asteroid and comet observations, had enough
data to announce the rediscovery of Apophis as a new asteroid but not enough
data to rule out an impact.



The Goldstone radar's imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest
approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)

"Even though we knew that, in reality, Apophis was not impacting Earth in 2029
starting from square one … there were large uncertainties in the object's orbit
that theoretically allowed an impact that year," Davide Farnocchia, a navigation
engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the statement.

Farnocchia led efforts to calculate Apophis' orbit, which were boosted by the
Goldstone Solar System Radar in California in March 2021. This ground-based
radar produced images of Apophis and measured its velocity and distance, thus
yielding a more accurate calculation of the asteroid's orbit. This information
was finally enough to rule out a collision in 2029 or for at least the next 100
years.

Related stories:

— Scientists prepare for their last good look at asteroid Apophis before 2029
flyby

— Wild Apophis asteroid spacecraft concept would loft tiny, laser-driven probes
for 2029 flyby

— If an asteroid really threatened the Earth, what would a planetary defense
mission look like?

"Seeing the planetary defense community come together during the latest close
approach of Apophis was impressive," Michael Kelley, a program scientist with
NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, said in the statement. "Even
during a pandemic, when many of the exercise participants were forced to work
remotely, we were able to detect, track, and learn more about a potential hazard
with great efficiency. The exercise was a resounding success."

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will visit Apophis during its close approach to Earth
in 2029. Meanwhile, a successor to NEOWISE, the NEO Surveyor, will launch
mid-decade.

Two papers describing the results of the project were published May 31 in The
Planetary Science Journal.

Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter
@Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky
and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at:
community@space.com.

Keith Cooper

Contributing writer

Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom,
and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester.
He's the author of "The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020) and has
written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude
of magazines and websites.

More about...
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