the countdown has begun NASA has announced that the 350m asteroid apus will be heading for earth in 5 years time experts are currently working flat out to prepare for this rendevu with the projectile from outer space but what could we actually do in the event of a collision would we be defenseless against the death and destruction that an asteroid this size would unleash or are there Ways and Means of warding off the danger from space well that's exactly what NASA staff are asking themselves which is why they recently Drew up the emergency plan to deal with an asteroid that has a 72% chance of hitting us it was June 19th 2004 when an entry was added to the list of cosmic projectiles at that time astronomers Roy Tucker David tholan and fabrio Bernardi at the peak National Observatory succeeded in adding an S-Type asteroid with a diameter of 350 m to the star charts the objects in question consist mainly of silicate containing rock as well as iron and nickel and yet it was and is not the material composition that is still making headlines today in fact the first observations had already shown that the asteroid would come very close to Earth on April 13th 2029 as a result its discoverers decided without further Ado to give the orbiting body A fitting name a a us the object is therefore the namesake of the ancient Egyptian God apus who embodies disillusion darkness and Chaos in mythology an ominous Omen well who knows but it's certain that as would live up to this destructive name with flying colors in the event of an impact the experts determined that the asteroid would release an energy of 900 megatons of TNT in the course of a collision to put this in perspective the largest nuclear explosion caused by humans the detonation of the Zar bomb had a value of 50 megatons of TNT in this category what consequences the impact of a us would have for life on Earth depends on a number of overriding factors first and foremost the exact composition of the asteroid and the location and angle of the impact if the asteroid smashes into land it would probably conjure up a death zone around itself with a radius of 250 km outside of this however the chances of survival would be comparatively high in the event of an impact in the water the nearby Coastal inhabitants would have to prepare themselves for full grown monster tsunamis Rising more than 100 MERS into the air but would it even be possible for o to become trixel asteroid 2.0 in in other words could the asteroid impact trigger a mass extinction of unimagined proportions just like 66 million years ago well fortunately the experts are giving the all clear in this respect in order to cause global destruction the impact energy of AOS would have to be 100 times greater than currently assumed how real is the danger in December 2004 the probability of an impact was still put at 1 in 37 or 2.7% however as a result of further data analysis a collision with the asteroid in 2029 is now considered to be ruled out and yet we must not forget one thing apus will come into close contact with the Earth not just once but several times over the next few decades because while the object orbits the Sun in a good 323 days it will also come particularly close to our blue home planet in 236 and 268 in an astronomical context particularly close means around 31,00 th000 kilm so in the course of the next rendevu apuse will pass just below the geostationary satellite orbit making it visible even to the naked eye because of this some astronomers feared that the close passage could alter the asteroids trajectory and pav the way for an impact in April 2036 a few more precise orbit determinations and calculations later however the experts announced that there would be no immediate Danger from apus at least in this Century but then the yovi effect came into play and the real risk of a collision was suddenly on everyone's lips again in Spring 2012 the team led by David thalin who as mentioned was one of the discoverers of the asteroid detected a series of decisive changes that gave rise to renewed concern observed with the Subaru telescope on Mona in Hawaii the researchers realized that apus was no longer where they would have expected it to be in detail the new investigations showed that the object was drifting away from a purely gravitational orbit by around 170 m per year an orbital shift that significantly increased the risk of impact for the year 2068 and whose cause was suspected to be solar radiation according to this the yurovsky effect occurs because the sides of the asteroid heat up to different degrees depending on the speed and direction of its own rotation this causes it to be deflected slightly inwards or outwards by the radiation pressure however NASA announced a few months later that based on new observation data there is no risk of an apus impact for the year 2068 the other side of the asteroid coin while the Public's interest in a usually revolves around around the apocalyptic scenario it could possibly conjure up we quickly forget that the asteroid also offers experts a unique research opport Unity the approach of the object also offers astronomers the chance to gain new insights into such near asteroids in fact a near Earth visit by a chunk of this size only occurs once every hundred years on average and in order to give the galactic visitor a proper welcome a team from the University of verberg is currently working on three different concepts for missions with small satellites that will take a closer look at a the neoli project could help to crack some fundamental asteroid puzzles these concern their structure the influence of their trajectory the gravitational interaction with other objects and above all the question of how to prevent an impact in order to come one step closer to finding the answers the verberg research team led by hack and Kyle is toying with the idea of developing a small satellite that would observe a for 2 months on its way to its closest point to the Earth and accompany it for a few weeks afterwards in this way the changes in the asteroid could be captured directly on image and complemented by detailed measurements however such an undertaking would also be a mammoth technical task the alternative concept goes by the name of Ramsay as part of this Mission a larger satellite equipped with a small satellite telescopes and other measuring instruments sets course for o the small but crucial catch here however is the fact that the actual implementation of the Ramsay's mission is currently still written in the proverbial Stars the third approach is ultimately based on the launch of a single small satellite just like the first but this time it only flies past the asteroid object of Desire once and documents it photographically at its closest point to Earth the cost of this Mission would be relatively low but the same would probably also apply to the knowledge gained ultimately it is therefore a matter of of weighing up which option makes the most sense and is most likely to be implemented the researchers want to announce their decision next year the case of the cases as mentioned we will be spared an asteroid impact at least in this Century but what about the worrying headlines that have been circulating the web for a few weeks now these read for example probability of asteroid impact in 2038 at 72% or asteroid will hit Earth on July 12th 2038 so how should we classify these ominous titles as the moment of panic finally arrived well it is Undisputed that the horror scenario proclaimed is actually based on an official NASA announcement but it's also Undisputed that it's a purely theoretical simulation game designed to help experts better prepare for an emergency and not just since yesterday NASA has actually been holding its asteroid emergency drills every 2 years since 2016 and this time the NASA JPL Center for near object studies has specified the scenario of an asteroid several hundred meters in size that would crash into the Earth in 14 years with a probability of 72% densely populated areas in North America southern Europe or North Africa would be at the center of the danger and to make matters worse the hypothetical chunk would move too close to the Sun for months and would therefore be very difficult to observe against this backdrop it was up to the 100 participants to develop strategies for Asteroid Defense public relations and disaster preparedness in the end however the main conclusion was that we are currently not particularly well prepared for the worst case scenario one fundamental problem for example is that the handling of such a scenario is completely unclear neither in the USA nor in the rest of the world are the procedures in the event of an asteroid impact clear clearly defined although there is a un supported Planning Commission the space mission planning and Advisory Group the participants in the exercise did not know what role this actually plays there was also the complication that it was difficult to say the least to maintain the efforts for Asteroid Defense over a period of 14 years in particular political leadership changes budget changes and the distracting influences of world events caused chaos but despite despite all the weaknesses and gaps that were uncovered NASA drew a positive conclusion it said in a summary the exercise raised awareness of the nature of the asteroid threat and the challenges with preparing an effective International response among the final recommendations were to better communicate the role of smag conduct more exercises and prepare message templates for the population in the event of a real threat and it should indeed be possible to assess the risk of potentially dangerous celestial bodies even better in the future NASA plans to launch the near Earth object survey or a Space Telescope that will search for new near Earth asteroids by the summer of 2028 and your search for the near Earth