Apocalypse is coming

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Apocalypse is coming
detect danger

October 30, 1938: "The Martians have landed in New Jersey" - this news was broadcast by American radio, interrupting dance music. Orson Welles made history with a radio play about the Martian invasion staged so meaningfully that millions of Americans feverishly barricaded themselves in their homes or fled their cars, causing huge traffic jams.

A similar reaction, only on a somewhat smaller scale (toutes ratios gardées, as the French say), was caused by the news in the October issue of the MT that, with a high degree of probability, in the not so distant future the planet Earth will collide with the asteroid (asteroid) Apophis.

It's even worse than the Martian invasion of New Jersey because there's nowhere to run. Phones rang in the editorial office, we were flooded with letters from readers asking whether this was true or a joke. Well, the top stories on state television in Moscow may not be true, but they certainly aren't prone to jokes. Russia has a mission to save and preserve humanity in its genes. The attempts she has made so far have not always been perfect.

However, this time we keep our fingers crossed for the success of the Russian expedition to Apophis, which saved the Earth from a collision with this asteroid. According to other, non-Russian sources, the probability Apophis colliding with Earth a few years ago it was estimated at around 3%, which is indeed an alarmingly high level.

However, the results of calculations of asteroid trajectories are corrected from time to time (see the box opposite), so there is no unequivocal answer to the question of whether Apophis will collide with the Earth. Seriously, according to NASA's latest calculations. asteroid Apophis will fly past the Earth in 2029 at a distance of 29.470 km over the Atlantic Ocean, and there is still uncertainty about the collision in 2036.

But there are thousands of other asteroids that could collide with Earth's orbit. In view of such a great interest in this topic, we decided to study a little more the current state of knowledge about possible collisions of the Earth with asteroids.

You will find the continuation of the article in the November issue of the magazine