Overview[]
99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid named after the Egyptian deity that was supposed to embody darkness and disorder, with a diameter of 1,210 feet. It formed 4.6 billion years ago in the asteroid belt somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered on June 19, 2004, by three researchers (Roy A. Tucker, David J. Tholen, Fabrizio Bernardi) at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson Arizona. It was discovered when the researchers were on a search for asteroids near the sun, and they initially named it 2004 MN4, and it was only observable for 2 days before weather conditions deteriorated too much for the asteroid to be visible. Many people have questioned if Apophis will hit Earth and cause an extinction level event, however the initial observations stated there was a 2.7% chance the asteroid would hit Earth, and more observations after this and radar observations in Spring of 2021 ruled out the possibility of the space rock impacting Earth for the next 100 years. The asteroid is located in the Leo constellation, 195,069,937.8 miles from Earth, which would position it inside the asteroid belt.
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