Apophis: Is the Asteroid heading for an Earth impact?

Apophis is an Asteroid that will either pass very close to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, or actually impact our planet. In size it is taller than the Empire State building and an Earth impact would be catastrophic.

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Top 100 Scientist and Technologist Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, in a study on the accuracy of Nasa’s Asteroid Science and simulations of the trajectory of Apophis, explains that up to 12 sets of data are used in these simulations and the results vary significantly (within the margin of error for an earth impact) depending on which set of data is used:

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“… random errors range from − 15% to + 19% when all four WISE bands were used, and from − 39% to + 57% in cases employing only the W2 band. The empirical results presented here show that much work remains to be done in analyzing data from the WISE/NEOWISE mission and interpreting it for asteroid science.”

and;

“An empirical examination of WISE/NEOWISE asteroid analysis and results refutes much of the data from NASA and charges them with deliberately miss-reporting threats by near Earth objects and of behaving extremely deceptively with deliberate scientific misconduct in a cover up of very real and potentially imminent space threats.”

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Famous Planetary Scientist and Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson:

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“Apophis will come so close to Earth that it will dip below our orbiting communication satellites. It will be the largest, closest thing we have ever observed to come by earth… the orbit we now have for it is uncertain because these things are hard to measure and hard to get an exact distance for, we cannot tell you exactly where that trajectory will be…”

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David Tholen, an astronomer from the University of Hawaii (2020, paraphrased):

“Data provided by the Subaru telescope reveals that Apophis shows signs of Yarkovsky acceleration, which means that the uneven reflection of Sun energy from the Asteroid’s surface is causing it to change course.”

The weakness of systemic predictions based on Wise-observation is that no control data exists - the only available data comes from the WISE/NEOWISE System itself. This means that current calculations of the asteroid’s circuit cannot be refined, and remain dependent on unforeseen influences, such as Yarkovsky acceleration. The effects of Yarkovsky deflection alone can adjust the course of Apophis to cause an Earth-impact, which would not be indicated by the available data at present. In essence, the asteroid can change its course and impact earth without any novus actus interveniens, the uneven reflection of sunlight alone can cause such a cataclysm.