apophis-the destroyer

Some of us could have seen the film Armageddon that featured a fictional story of attacks by the asteroids, which came deflected from the asteroid belt, and if these asteroids collide with our planet, they would create the most powerful nuclear explosion enveloping the whole planet. The director of the film has applied a strategy of placing the nuclear weapon by digging a hole in the asteroid and making it to deflect by exploding it.

In the same way the scientist have identified nearly 127 asteroids that pose a threat between 2020 and 2050. Among them apophis99942 (the Greek name of the ancient enemy of the Egyptian sun god) was identified as the most deadly one. Though the size of the asteroids is termed to be a speck, which is a comparative terms smaller than a dust mote in the expanse of sky when seen through a powerful telescope, the concern is that the real size and the speed at which it is traveling.

The length of apophis has been estimated at 350m, weighing more than 20 million tones and traveling at a speed more than 20,000kph. The date of collision with earth is tentatively estimated at April 13,2036 somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. If it collides the destruction would envelope the whole world causing numerous earthquake and tsunamis on a large scale.

Thus this issue is no longer a fiction and the international academy of astronautics on planet defense has to take some important decision regarding this issue, when they meet in April 2009, for the first time.

But the scientist had devised some strategy, which would help to deflect the asteroids away from us. The experiments suggest that it would be enough if the rate of deflection were about a cm/second from 2026. Some of the strategies are
· It is estimated that the asteroid will have a close flyby in 2029. The Idea is to position a satellite close to it and to use micro-gravity force to deflect it
· To place solar sails on the surface which would help in deflecting them
· To make a nuclear explosion near its surface so that it would help in the deflection of apophis due to the kinetic energy produced by the explosion.

Though the collision of the asteroid is scheduled after a quarter century, the matter should be seriously taken into account when the international academy of astronautics on planet defense meet on coming April 2009 to device a method to save our planet from the deadly guest-apophis.

Thank you