In April 2029, a Massive Asteroid Will Just Miss Earth. Scientists Are Worried There Could Still Be Major Consequences

In April 2029, a rare visitor is going to swing through near-Earth space. Asteroid 99942 Apophis – a chunk of space rock around 370 meters (1,210 feet) long – is going to sail past within hailing distance, less than 32,000 kilometers (20,000 miles) from Earth.Scientists have crunched, and re-crunched, and crunched the numbers again for good measure, and they're as certain as they can be that Apophis poses no imminent threat to the inhabitants of Earth.But do the inhabitants of Earth pose a threat to Apophis? Well, the answer to that question is a surprising maybe, according to a paper published in The Planetary Science Journal.In particular, our penchant for littering near-Earth space with junk could jeopardize a once-in-a-lifetime scientific opportunity, according to physicist Giulia Schettino and astrodynamicist Alessandro Rossi of the Institute of Applied Physics "Nello Carrara" (IFAC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR)."I am an expert both on space debris and on asteroid dynamics," Rossi told ScienceAlert."Hence, from the very beginning, when I was seeing the usual animations of Apophis' trajectory during the closest approach, I immediately started to wonder if there was any possibility of encounter with the vast population of human-made space debris."