Only a 13-year-old school boy found an error in NASA’s calculation and came up with much larger probability for the killer-asteroid Apophis to strike the Earth. According to NASA Apophis has 1/45.000 probability to strike the Earth. 13 years old Nico Marquardt noticed an error in NASA’s calculation and corrected it to staggering 1/450, says Potsdamer Neuerster Nachricten magazine.

Apophis is a big asteroid that is going to pass our planet in 2029. According to Nico Marquardt there is a possibility that Apophis collides with one of our 40.000 satellites orbiting the Earth. This collision might change the direction of Apophis so that next time passing our planet in 2036 Apophis would slam to our planet. Both NASA and Marquardt believe that if Apophis hits our planet, it will slam into a sea. This would cause a super-massive tsunami.

Oh boy! 1/450 probability sounds pretty large for me! This new calculation makes Apophis a real threat. Let’s see what researchers say about the new results. Meanwhile I will stay a bit worried.. Naa, just kidding. Whatever will happen, Apophis passing our planet in 2029 and especially 2036 will be a big thing. Apophis will gain lots of attention and the media will talk about it heavily.

More about Apophis from Wikipedia: “99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a relatively large probability (up to 2.7%) that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However there remained a possibility that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about 400 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006. It broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered“. 

This article was written by Marko Pyhajarvi and its original location is in HomeboyAstronomy.Com astronomy blog. For more great astronomy articles, please visit HomeboyAstronomy.Com.

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