Roid Rage

99942 Apophis is a an irregularly shaped, 1000 foot wide chunk of rock (or perhaps metal) that is meandering around the solar system periodically coming uncomfortably close to the earth’s orbital path. This particular piece of rock was discovered by three dudes in June of 2004 and immediately became a matter of some concern to people that concern themselves with being concerned about such things. Apophis, by the way, is the Greek name for the Egyptian demon Apep, the ‘enemy of Ra” and the personification of all that is evil. That’s a pretty harsh moniker for a chunk of rock, but as we shall see, it is not completely without merit.

Apophis has a mass of approximately 2.7 × 1010 kilograms, or 29,762,405 tons. Unbelievably, that’s more massive than Mariah Carey’s ass. It orbits the sun once every 323 days and scoots along at about 30 kilometers per second, or right at 67,000 miles per hour. It has an elliptical orbit (of course) which takes it as far as about 103 million miles from the sun and as close as 69 million miles; and this just happens to be in the ball park of the 93 million mile average distance of the Earth from the sun. While Apophis is by no means the largest lump of debris pursuing its own independent course through the solar system, it is so far projected to be one of those that comes the closest to our little green planet, potentially intersecting Earth’s orbit several times during the current century. Present analysis indicates that Apophis will make a very near miss in 2029 with the potential for a further close encounter in 2036 and again in 2037. Because interaction with the gravitational fields of countless other bodies occurs continually during orbit, it is difficult to predict the exact location and velocity of any celestial object too far in the future, or the probability of collision, hence the uncertainty, and anxiety, about Apophis.

Most everyone with reasonably decent eye-sight has seen a “shooting-star” at some point in their lives. These meteors are typically no larger than your fist and are totally consumed by the heat and pressure of entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Larger meteoroids will sometimes survive all the way to impact, becoming meteorites, often after doing great violence to the Earth’s surface. The Earth has been bombarded by these cosmic leftovers every hour of every day since God said let there be light. Unknown to most, shortly after the light thing, God also said let there be crap slamming into other crap on a random basis forever and ever, amen; so, our beautiful little Eden here has been on constant alert for divine kinetic intervention for about four and one-half billion years. In that time we have apparently been walloped by some real doozies, and all we need do is take a gander at our sterile neighbor, the Moon, to see what can happen, given enough time.

Apophis is potentially a treacherous little demon, but nothing like the devil himself that slammed into the Earth around 65 million years ago. That asteroid, or comet, may have been as large as 6 kilometers in diameter and could have released an explosive force equal to as much as 100 million megatons of TNT, ruining an otherwise pleasant day for much of the world’s existing life. There is still some debate as to whether this event caused, contributed to, or had nothing to do with, the extinction of the dinosaurs, but if it happened the way most geologists think it did, it would, without doubt, have been a catastrophe of enormous proportions. Apophis’ relatively paltry 350 meter diameter and estimated 880 megaton explosive force may pale in comparison, but it is still estimated that if it hit one of the more populous areas along its potential path, it could result in tens of millions of deaths and have significant long-term effects on the global climate. The unfortunate part is that Apophis, and countless other bodies like it, will inevitably smack into the Earth at some point in the future if the Earth is around long enough.

Based upon current observations and calculations, NASA believes there is a one in 250,000 chance that Apophis will collide with Earth in April of 2036. That sounds like a real long-shot, but consider this; the odds of winning the Powerball multi-state lottery are one in approximately 159 million and there is a winner or two every two to three weeks. While this is not a valid statistical comparison, it is meant to point out that even very unlikely events do occur, and if such an occurrence would result in very unsatisfactory results, it might be a good idea to contemplate the situation. A Near Earth Object (NEO) is defined as any object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth, close being defined as orbiting within approximately 121 million miles of the sun. There are a few thousand NEOs already identified and each of these has some calculable probability of striking the Earth at some point. Many NEOs are quite large and there are potentially many, many times more NEOs still unidentified; then there are all the random, rouge asteroids, comets, planetoids, Plymouth satellites and broken down alien spaceships which may fly out of nowhere and smash into us with little warning.

So here’s the deal. I am an unrepentant space exploration enthusiast and feel we would be way better off if we took all our military budgets and used them to research warp drive or turn Mars into a habitable planet. I believe in a human future that is unconstrained by gravity, but for those of you who don’t feel the same way, I would break it down like this; to the large number of gentle fellow humans who believe God will protect you and your progeny until the end times, go back to sleep; I’m not talking to you. To those of you who think the moon landings were faked by the government in order to steal your hard-earned cash through outrageous taxes; go Google “booger” or “sex with chickens”; you’re wasting your time here. However, for those of you who value human civilization and understand the power of the human mind, give Apophis some thought; and especially for those of you who believe in the value of the human spirit and the natural world we inhabit, but who are suspicious of the military/industrial complex and want our resources to be committed to relieving human suffering and promoting a sustainable civilization, think about the “enemy of Ra” and what will be necessary to combat him if he turns his eye to us.