Headlines:
• NASA's DART Mission Successfully Intercepts Asteroid Dimorphos, Changes Its Orbit (BBC News, October 2022)
• Impact Expected: Scientists Warn of Potential "Devastating" Asteroid Impact in 2029 (The Guardian, April 2022)
• Asteroid Tracker: NASA's NEOWISE Mission to Scan the Skies for Near-Earth Objects (Space. com, February 2022)
• Japan's Space Agency JAXA to Launch New Asteroid Mission to Study Bennu's Composition (The Japan Times, March 2022)
• Scientists Baffled by Mysterious Asteroid Orbiting Earth at Close Proximity (The New York Times, November 2021)
• NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Captures Stunning Image of Asteroid Ryugu's Cratered Surface (Scientific American, May 2020)
• Astronomers Discover Large Asteroid Believed to be leftovers from Solar System Formation (Scientific Reports... January 2021)
• NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission Returns Samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth for Study (The Washington Post... September 2022)
In a bid to make sure we don't go the same way as the dinosaurs , the European Space Agency (ESA) has today announced its beginning work on a bold new planetary defence mission, the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses).
This mission aims to rendezvous with the asteroid 99942 Apophis, an object roughly the size of a cruise liner, and accompany it during its close flyby of Earth in April 2029.
Apophis, measuring approximately 375 metres across, will pass within 32,000 kilometres of Earth's surface on April 13, 2029. This rare event, visible to the naked eye across parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, will draw global attention. Such a close approach by an asteroid of this size occurs only once every 5,000 to 10,000 years.
Astronomers have ruled out any chance of Apophis colliding with Earth in the next 100 years (phew). However, its 2029 flyby offers scientists a unique opportunity for scientific observation of a close-quarters flyby.
ESA's Ramses spacecraft will arrive at Apophis two months before its closest approach to monitor the asteroid's physical changes due to Earth's gravitational forces.
Ramses will launch in April 2028 to ensure its arrival at Apophis by February 2029. The mission objective is to observe and study how Earth's gravity affects Apophis, potentially causing landslides and revealing new material from beneath the asteroid's surface.
Patrick Michel , Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, emphasised the importance of this mission, saying, "There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the Solar System to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface."
"For the first time ever, nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces."
Using a suite of scientific instruments, Ramses will comprehensively survey Apophis, analysing its shape, surface, orbit, rotation and more.
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