Apophis and the question "who are we?"

This morning I noticed an article in The New Indian Express on "Apophis" written by Manoj K Das - " Deadly date with a dark god ".

Apophis is a Egyptian God (the snake in the picture), who is the only threat to Ra - the sun god. Apophis is darkness and it swallows sun in the night. I don't know the actual story but it is something like this. The Present Apophis is a real threat. It is an asteroid bound to strike earth by 2036.

The article talks about the asteroid Apophis(permanent number 99942) which as per observations and calculations by scientists has a relatively high probability of collision on earth. The asteroid is about 390 m wide and it comes very close to earth (well below the geo- synchronous orbit) in the year 2029 and passes through a gravity keyhole about 600 metres wide. A gravity keyhole is a small region in space that if an asteroid were to pass through it, its course would be altered. So this gravity keyhole alters Apophis' trajectory and this increases the probability of it colliding with the earth in 2036.

Collision probability is calculated and based on the impact energy of collision a scale called Torino scale is arrived at. This scale tells us the level of danger of that asteroid colliding on earth. Our Apophis has a Torino scale number of 1 in a scale of 0-10, which is relatively high. No asteroid in the past 1300 years had been a threat like this(Their Torino number were much lower). The probability of Apophis kissing the earth is 1 in 45000 . insignificant is it?? but it is not.. This is relatively higher.. More observations are being made to study its path and estimate its trajectory so that they can conclude if it will pass through the gravity keyhole. Figure in the left shows the probable impact locations. I can hear the sigh of relief from Indians.

Already people have started worrying about it in various parts of the world and scientists are thinking of ways to avoid collision. Already work has started in this direction to send a spacecraft to survey the asteroid, report its trajectory and observe its composition etc. Watched the movie Armageddon? Astronauts go, plant nuclear bombs and kill the asteroid coming to strike earth.. This time astronauts won't go. Missiles or rockets might go with a nuclear bomb payload to strike the asteroid when it comes close to earth, to alter its path. Some scientists talk about planting Solar Sails in the asteroid so that the photons will produce enough pressure which is sufficient to drift the asteroid so that it doesnt strike our blue planet.Don't worry, Lots of idea will pour in for sure 'cos everybody is eager to live.

Post impact (dont worry it won't happen!), there wont be any long lasting impact effects as "impact winter", Scientists say. But there would be a very big crater and millions of casualties if it struck in the land and very big Tsunamis if it struck in the ocean. The magnitude depends on the angle of impact and the velocity during impact. Estimated to be around 20,000 kmph.


I was wondering at one thing after I read this article. We are a part of a planet called earth. We are a group of molecules living. Here I say living 'cos there is something that makes living things distinct. The coordination of carbon, Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphor etc inside a cell happens in a right manner. They have got together in the right combination and the probability for this combination was worked out to be 1 in 1 followed by 260 zeroes as mentioned by Writer Sujatha in his book "Uyirin Ragasiyam". The combination formed a primitive cell, deep under the sea which multiplied itself (our ancestor!!) and till date has evolved into various forms of living beings. Reptiles like dinosaurs were dominant till a certain period of time, until some asteroid like the one that is coming for us, hit the earth to wipe out them completely from the face of earth.

We human beings, just imagine, are similar chemicals with probably a different combination which makes it think.We are a part of this earth. The ability to think has made us observe an asteroid coming towards earth using telescope by studying the doppler shifts and build rockets , nuclear bombs to save the planet from an asteroid hitting it, which is just a normal event in the universe. The capability of biochemicals living on the surface of planet to alter course of events to save a planet is something astounding.

Think of it.Isn't it something really amazing?


references : www.wikipedia.org , www.touregypt.net