The devastation that a 370-metre-wide asteroid currently orbiting Earth could cause has been revealed in a sobering timeline of disaster.
A 370-metre-wide asteroid has been orbiting Earth for decades and scientists say the effects could be catastrophic.
A series of very unfortunate events would have to coalesce for it to strike — but if it did you could kiss goodbye to vast swathes of the North American continent.
The asteroid, named Apophis 99942, has long been classed as a “near-Earth” space rock and briefly caused a panic in December 2004 when scientists estimated there was a 3 per cent chance it could hit Earth in 2029.
But by 2006, after scientists had had some time to properly study the mammoth rock, they realised the asteroid would instead pass through a gravitational keyhole — a small region in space that changes an object’s gravity — which pushed the date of Apophis’ impact to April 13, 2036.
But a 2036 impact has since been deemed almost impossible with scientists instead eyeing the year 2068 with a tiny one in 150,000 chance of collision.
While Apophis might never hit Earth’s surface, prominent astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke chillingly about what could happen.
Revealing his research at a university lecture in 2008, Dr Tyson said if the asteroid were to hit Earth, it would cause horrific damage and could potentially wipe out the entire west coast of North America.
“In the era of observing the cosmos with technology, this will be the closest, biggest thing we will ever see,” he said.
“The orbit we now have for it is uncertain enough because these things are hard to measure, we cannot tell you exactly where that trajectory will be.
“We know it won’t hit Earth, we know it will be closer than the orbiting satellites.
“But there is a 600-mile (965km) zone — we call it the keyhole — and if the asteroid goes through the middle of that it will hit the Earth 13 years later.”
Scientists have done further research on the keyhole since Dr Tyson’s speech and found the keyhole was instead just over 500m wide,leaving not much space for Apophis to pass through.
Dr Tyson estimated the asteroid would hit 800km west of Santa Monica, a popular, coastal suburb of Los Angeles.
The impact of the asteroid, already sped up by passing through the Earth’s atmosphere, would trigger a tsunami.
“If it goes through the centre (of the keyhole), it will plunge down into the Pacific Ocean to a depth of three miles (4km), at which point it explodes, cavitating the Pacific in a hole that’s three miles (4km) wide.
“That will send a tsunami wave outwards from that location that is 50 feet (15m) high.
“Oceans don’t like having holes in them, so this three-mile-high wall does what? It collapses.
“It falls back into the hole sloshing against itself with such ferocity that it rises high into the atmosphere and falls back down to the ocean, cavitating the ocean again.
“So now you make a cavity a second time. This cycle takes about 50 seconds, you can calculate it.”
