Apophis Close Encounter: Examining Earth’s Future with Renamed OSIRIS-APEX Spacecraft in April 2029 (NASA)
Hot off its amazing mission to gather samples from an asteroid way out in space, NASA‘s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is gearing up for its next adventure: checking out another asteroid as it swings by Earth.
OSIRIS-REx completed its seven-year, 4 billion-mile round-trip journey to snag samples from the space rock Bennu back in September. But instead of calling it a day, the team thought it would be cool to send it on a second mission to the asteroid Apophis, which is set to get closer to Earth in 2029 than any other asteroid its size has ever gotten in recorded history.
They’re giving the spacecraft a new name for this mission – OSIRIS-APEX, short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer.
“The close approach is a great natural experiment,” explained Dani Mendoza Della Giustina, the head honcho for OSIRIS-APEX. “We know that tidal forces and the accumulation of rubble pile material are foundational processes that could play a role in planet formation. They could inform how we got from debris in the early solar system to full-blown planets.”
NASA held an OSIRIS-REx sample unveiling at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on Oct. 11, 2023. A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, scientists revealed, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. (MARK FELIX/AFP/AFP via Getty Images)
Now, Apophis is a big space rock, over 1,000 feet wide, named after an Egyptian deity and nicknamed the “God of Chaos.” This asteroid, spotted first in 2004, is expected to swing by Earth’s surface, getting within 20,000 miles – closer than some of our satellites – on April 13, 2029.
Asteroids this size usually only pass Earth this closely about once every 7,500 years, according to scientists. Initially, they thought there was a 3% chance it might crash into Earth, but as time went on, they realized that won’t happen in 2029 or when Apophis swings by again in 2036.
This close encounter will mess with Apophis’ orbit and the length of its day, which is usually 30.6 hours. It might even cause quakes and landslides on Apophis, exposing material beneath the surface.
“OSIRIS-APEX will study Apophis immediately after such a pass, allowing us to see how its surface changes by interacting with Earth’s gravity,” said Amy Simon, the brains behind the mission.
OSIRIS-APEX‘s cameras will start snapping pics of the asteroid about two weeks before it zooms by Earth. Then, on April 13, 2029, it’ll reach Apophis and stick around for a year and a half, checking out any changes caused by the close encounter.
But here’s the twist: unlike its visit to Bennu, OSIRIS-APEX won’t actually touch Apophis. Instead, the spacecraft will get within 16 feet of the asteroid’s surface, firing its thrusters to kick up rocks and dust. This way, scientists can get a sneak peek at what’s hiding beneath the surface.
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