One of the show's persistent villains is an alien named Apophis. Tholen and Tucker, two of the co-discoverers of the asteroid, are reportedly fans of the television series Stargate SG-1. Apep is held at bay by Set, the Ancient Egyptian god of storms and the desert. He is the Uncreator, an evil serpent that dwells in the eternal darkness of the Duat and tries to swallow Ra during his nightly passage. Apophis is the Greek name of Apep, an enemy of the Ancient Egyptian sun-god Ra. Receiving a permanent number made it eligible for naming by its discoverers, and they chose the name 'Apophis' on July 19, 2005. Once its orbit was sufficiently well calculated, it received the permanent number 99942 (on June 24, 2005). When first discovered, the object received the provisional designation 2004 MN 4, and early news and scientific articles naturally referred to it by that name. The discovery was notable in that it was at a very low solar elongation (56°) and at very long range (1.1 AU). Radar astrometry in January 2005 further refined its orbit solution. Precovery observations from March 15, 2004, were identified on December 27, and an improved orbit solution was computed. Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. (00:20 VideoFile April 29, 2019) (turquoise dots = artificial satellites pink = International Space Station)Īpophis was discovered on June 19, 2004, by Roy A. The uncertainty in the 2029 approach distance has been reduced from hundreds of kilometers to now just a couple of kilometers, greatly enhancing predictions of future approaches.Īsteroid Apophis – closest approach to Earth on Ap The Goldstone radar observed Apophis March 3–11, 2021, helping to refine the orbit again, and on March 25, 2021, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that Apophis has no chance of impacting Earth in the next 100 years. Observations in 2020 by the Subaru telescope confirmed David Vokrouhlický's 2015 Yarkovsky effect predictions. On average, an asteroid the size of Apophis (370 metres) is expected to impact Earth once in about 80,000 years. Entering March 2021, six asteroids each had a more notable cumulative Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale rating than Apophis, and none of those has a Torino level above 0. On April 12, 2068, the nominal trajectory has Apophis 1.87 AU (280 million km) from Earth. In 2036, Apophis will approach the Earth at a third the distance of the Sun in both March and December, but this is about the distance of the planet Venus when it overtakes Earth every 1.6 years.

By (April 15, 2013, observation arc), the possibility of an impact on Aphad been eliminated altogether. Preliminary observations by Goldstone radar in January 2013 effectively ruled out the possibility of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036. During the short time when it had been of greatest concern, Apophis set the record for highest rating ever on the Torino scale, reaching level 4 on December 27, 2004. By 2008, the keyhole had been determined to be less than 1 km wide. This possibility kept it at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006, when the probability that Apophis would pass through the keyhole was determined to be very small and Apophis's rating on the Torino scale was lowered to zero. Until 2006, a small possibility nevertheless remained that, during its 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole of no more than about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in diameter, which would have set up a future impact exactly seven years later on April 13, 2036. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth in 2029. 99942 Apophis ( provisional designation 2004 MN 4) is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object with a diameter of 370 metres (1,210 feet) that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029.

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