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13-year-old says Apophis has 1 in 450 chance of hitting Earth in 2036

NASA predicted that the Apophis asteroid has about a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting the Earth in 2029 when it will to pass by the Earth at a distance of around 32,500 kilometers. Apophis first became an object of attention in December 2004 when the asteroid was deemed to have a 2.7% chance of striking the Earth.

The fear is that the asteroid could pass through a gravitational keyhole leading to an impact with the Earth in 2036 when the asteroid makes another orbit near earth. According to NASA, if the asteroid struck the earth it would create a 1,049 foot wide ball of iron and iridium weighing 200 billion tons that would crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The result of this crash would be devastating to the Earth as huge tsunami waves would be generated and obliterate coastal areas as well as inland areas. In addition to the Tsunami threat, the impact would create a thick dust cloud that could darken skies for an unknown period of time. The threat of impact from Apophis led to some calling on the UN to get a plan in place to deal with the threat asteroid impacts.

Yahoo News reports that a 13-year-old German schoolboy, Nico Marquardt, found a fault in NASA’s calculations. Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam to calculate the likelihood that Apophis would collide with the Earth in 2036. The boy took into account the chance that Apophis could strike one of the 40,000 orbiting satellites around the Earth on it initial pass in 2029 leading to a change in the trajectory of the asteroid.

This change in trajectory if Apophis strikes a satellite could mean an impact in 2036. According to Marquardt the likelihood of Apophis striking the Earth in 2036 is 1 in 450, not the 1 in 45,000 NASA predicts.

Source: http://www.dailytech.com