Rapid Apophis Mission For Space Safety:
The European Space Agency recently announced that its new Ramses spacecraft may accompany the asteroid Apophis before and after its safe, albeit rather close, pass of Earth.
- Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES) is a planetary defence mission of the European Space Agency (ESA).
- It will intercept the asteroid 99942 Apophis and accompany it through its safe but exceptionally close flyby of Earth in 2029.
- Roughly 375 m across, Apophis will pass within 32,000 km from Earth’s surface on 13 April, 2029.
- It will be the closest approach of an asteroid of this size that humankind has ever known about in advance.
- For a short time, Apophis will be visible to the naked eye in clear, dark skies for about 2 billion people across much of Europe, and Africa, and parts of Asia.
- Apophis will miss Earth. Astronomers have ruled out any chance that the asteroid will collide with our planet for at least the next 100 years.
- But the Apophis flyby in April 2029 is an extremely rare natural phenomenon.
- Researchers will study the asteroid as Earth’s gravity alters its physical characteristics.
- Their findings will improve our ability to defend our planet from any similar object found to be on a collision course in the future.
- RAMSES will work in synergy with the NASA mission OSIRIS-APEX that will arrive at Apophis a few days after the closest approach of the asteroid to the Earth, allowing a comparison of the asteroid properties measured by the two missions.
