'God of Destruction' asteroid Apophis will come to Earth in 2029 — and it could meet some tiny spacecraft

SPACE.com:  In just under half a decade, a 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) asteroid named after the Egyptian god of chaos and destruction, Apophis, will pass within 30,000 miles (48,300 kilometers) of Earth. Scientists don't intend to allow the rare close passage of a space rock of this size to go to waste.

On April 13, 2029 — a Friday, no less — when Apophis, formally known as (99942) Apophis, makes its closest approach to Earth, it will become so prominent over our planet that it will visible with the unaided eye. NASA's OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft (once known as OSIRIS-REx) will be on hand to meet the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) personally. But, if things shape up, that NASA mission could be joined by a host of little satellites during its rendezvous.

Under the auspicious "NEAlight" project, a team from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) and led by space engineer Hakan Kayal has revealed three concepts for such spacecraft. Each of the suggested satellites will aim to exploit this asteroid passage because Earth experiences just once such event every millennium. The goal? To collect data that could help scientists better understand the solar system, and perhaps even aid in the development of defense measures against dangerous asteroids.

As to why Apophis is an apt target for a planetary defense study? Well, discovered in 2004, the asteroid quickly rose to the top of tables that measure the risk of so-called potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), or asteroids with widths of 460 feet (140 meters) or more that come within 20 lunar distances of Earth.

Both the size of Apophis and how close to Earth its trajectory brings it saw the asteroid remain at the top of both the European Space Agency's (ESA's) "impact risk list" of PHAs and NASA's Sentry Risk Table for 17 years. That was until a close flyby of the asteroid — a space rock that is almost as wide as the Empire State Building is tall — in March 2021 allowed NASA scientists to determine Apophis actually won't hit the Earth for at least 100 years.

Though we now know Apophis won't collide with Earth in the next century, its scientific impact in 2029 will still be tremendous, and space agencies from countries across the globe will be closely tracking its trajectory.

Plus, as an asteroid that formed around the same time as the planets from leftover material around the infant sun, Apophis also offers researchers a unique opportunity to determine what the solar system's chemical composition was around 4.6 billion years ago