Will Apophis Hit the Earth? By Brian Simpson

I was interested to read a thoughtful piece by Christian social critic Michael Snyder on the Apophis asteroid: "The Truth about Apophis," November 25, 2024, and whether it will strike the Earth. Now by way of introduction, I am a keen night sky watcher, and twice this year at a rural viewing site have seen close meteorite strikes, getting maybe 100 feet or less from the ground before burning up. One strike was a meteorite coming in on an acute angle, lighting up the sky with a green colour (copper?) before burning out. If the angle was not so acute it may have hit the ground. Another time one came right at me, before burning up. So, this stuff is out there, although city dwellers do not have much of a night sky to see.

The Apophis asteroid is about 335 metres across and travelling at 72,000 km/h. If it was to strike the Earth, it would have the energy of the entire global nuclear arsenal going off at once, some 10 billion-billion, 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules, which is an incredible amount of destructive energy. If it hit the oceans, it would create a mega-tsunami powerful enough to wipe out coastal cities. And a land impact would also be devasting throwing up material blocking sunlight and creating a volcanic winter, and ending any thought of global warming for sure. The Greens would get their colder climate, with no sun, and mass famine as plants die.

While all off this is horrible, NASA has stated that there is zero chance of a strike. However, Apophis will pass less than one tenth of the distance of the Earth to the moon, which is incredibly close. Worse yet, the asteroid cannot be seen at present, being in the daytime sky, and will not be observable until 2027. If a change in its trajectory occurs, that will not be detected until 2027. The Earth's gravity may affect the trajectory of the asteroid, causing perturbations, or tremors on the surface of the asteroid. One line of thought is that these gravitational effects could cause the trajectory of the asteroid to alter and head to Earth. At present, no-one knows for sure, but the money is on humanity dodging a cosmic bullet on this one. I hope.