![]() ![]() Learn more about Apophis and how its close approach provides unique opportunities for science and public education.Īre there any asteroids heading for Earth? Fortunately that won't happen, although in 2029 Apophis will only miss us by about 30,000 kilometers (19,000 miles), coming closer than our geostationary communications satellites. It would cause massive regional destruction if it were to hit the Earth. Skipping to much, much larger sizes, an asteroid the size of the dinosaur (and 70% of the species on Earth) killer at 10 km in size hits on time scales more like 100 million years.Īsteroid Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid at least 450 meters long.On average larger asteroids hit less frequently with increasing size, i.e., big stuff hits less often, including the extreme case: It leveled an area of forest 50% larger than the city of Los Angeles but luckily hit an uninhabited area in Siberia. An asteroid like the one that exploded near the Tunguska River in Siberia in 1908 impacts on average once or twice a millennium.Its shock wave shattered windows and injured more than 1000 people. An asteroid of about 20 meters diameter like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 on average will hit once or twice a century.They make spectacular fireballs in the atmosphere, and sometimes fragments make it to the surface as meteorites, but don’t cause any significant damage on the ground. About 30 small asteroids a few meters in size hit Earth every year. ![]()
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