Apophis

Dear reader,

Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid, which was discovered in the year 2004, in which it caused quite a fuss. At first it was assumed that it would get very close to the Earth. Now more data is known about it and the fly path was determined more precisely. The probability of a collision with the Earth is very, very slim to rather unlikely.

You may wonder now, when Apophis will come so dangerously or un-dangerously near? According to current calculations, it's going to be on April, 13 2029. Don't laugh, when I'm going to tell you which day of the week it's going to be: in all seriousness, it's a Friday, the 13^th.

As a child, naturally I've been sceptical about Friday, 13^th and bad things happening on those days. But when I was in primary school (elementary school, for my American readers), we had a rehearsal on a Friday, 13^th, for a play of our recorder group and the rehearsal went without any problems. So I lost my fears about this specific day at a quite early age.

What could happen, if the asteroid does in fact come too close to the Earth or does in fact hit it? Well, that depends on the entry angle and the area of impact. If it's going to go down in deep water, we should expect high tsunamis. Although the asteroid has definitely potential to cause certain damage, should it hit the Earth, it's not expected to be a global catastrophe. Like I said, current status is that there's not going to be a collision anyway. I guess we'll literally have to wait and see what's going to happen on Friday, 13^th 2029.

Until next blog,

sarah