NASA’s asteroid sampling spacecraft OSRIS-APEX could have an exciting recent mission in 2029, when it’s going to watch an exciting asteroid encounter like no other in recorded human history.
The craft, formerly referred to as OSIRIS-REx, will bear witness because the asteroid Apophis— named after the traditional Egyptian god of chaos— comes so near our planet that it could possibly be visible with the naked eye in some parts of the world.
After bringing a sample back from asteroid Bennu, the craft was recently rebranded the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer (OSRIS-APEX) in recognition of this “bonus mission.”
The close approach of Apophis, which is regarded as 1,115 feet (340 meters) across almost as wide because the Empire State Constructing is tall, on April 13, 2029, will see the space rock come as near Earth as 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometres), closer than some satellites.
“OSIRIS-APEX will study Apophis immediately after such a pass, allowing us to see how its surface changes by interacting with Earth’s gravity,” OSIRIS-APEX project scientist Amy Simon said in a press release.
Apophis became notorious in 2004 as an asteroid that might potentially impact Earth with a size great enough to pose a threat to our planet. Nevertheless, in March 2021, observations of the orbit of the space rock, also referred to as Asteroid 99942, led astronomers to conclude that it poses no threat to Earth for at the very least 100 years.
NASA scientists still need to understand how the comb with Earth in 2029 will affect the 324-day orbit of Apophis across the sun. Moreover, coming near Earth, which Apophis only does around once every 7,500 Earth years, may shake up the surface of the asteroid by triggering quakes and landslides.
Though this sounds catastrophic, it could reveal what lies beneath the surface of Apophis, and OSIRIS-APEX will probably be available after the encounter to research any secrets which can be revealed.
“The close approach is an excellent natural experiment,” OSIRIS-APEX principal investigator and University of Arizona scientist Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina said. “We all know that tidal forces and the buildup of rubble pile material are foundational processes that might play a job in planet formation. They might inform how we got from debris within the early solar system to full-blown planets.”
Because asteroids are composed of fabric left over from the formation of planets across the infant sun around 4.5 billion years ago, this investigation could reveal what the constructing blocks of Earth and its fellow rocky planets were.
Apophis is fabricated from silicate materials and nickel-iron, making it considerably different from the carbon-rich asteroid Bennu, which OSRIS-APEX visited under its prior moniker in Oct. 2020 to gather a sample that it dropped off at Earth in September 2023 before continuing on its mission.
OSIRIS-APEX will reach Apophis on April 13, 2029, and can operate across the asteroid for roughly six months. During this time, the spacecraft will perform a few of the same investigations that it did during its time at Bennu — analyzing the surface and chemical makeup of Apophis.
And just because it did at Bennu, OSIRIS-APEX will cap this investigation off by dropping to inside around 16 feet (5 meters) of the surface of Apophis and blasting it with its thrusters, further displacing surface material to catch up with to the center of the Empire State Constructing sized space rock.
“We learned lots at Bennu, but now we’re armed with much more questions for our next goal,” Simon concluded.