Civilization Threatening Asteroid Now Viewed by NASA, Others

An Update on Steps Being Taken to Cancel the Threat of Apophis

Associated Content Readers may recall my interest, my fascination, really, with an asteroid of considerable size, and incredible speed, which scientists have indicated may collide with the earth in a few years, and that could "send us the way of the dinosaurs." No small thing.

I first became aware of the coming asteroid, now called Apophis, or more correctly 99942 Apophis on a chilly morning in 2002, when I awoke early and sipped my morning coffee while scanning the televised news for late breaking political content. Marching across the bottom of my TV screen, very early, the sun still below the horizon, came a quick blurb than an asteroid had been discovered that would probably impact the Earth, in 2029. Nothing more was said, no follow up -- the item was dropped into the mist and never re-appeared. Eventually I researched some obscure web sites, impact.com comes to mind, and was re-assured that the likelihood of impact was reduced to one chance in several million.

Several years later, in late spring or early summer 2006, the world was advised of the find, via a 20/20 news special; a program designated "Final Days". The national broadcast explored several ways in which the world might suddenly end, one of which was asteroidal impact, and they made mention of Apophis (then called "2002NY40"). This eccentric flying projectile they said was a "near miss" on Aug. 17th and 18th, 2006. They went on to say it is again due in 2029 (Friday, April 13). That same asteroid will AGAIN pass, even CLOSER, on April 13, 2036! They said, because of the speed of the projectile, crossing a distance similar to the diameter of the Moon in 6 minutes or at 65,000 kilometers per hour, there was little hope of interception. They said, in any case, if we explode the traveler, we will be confronted not with one large object, but with hundreds, or thousands of smaller objects.