Apophis, is it the end of the world as we know it...

Here’s a story to make you think and scare the B’ Jesus out of you, this is not the kind of thing you will see on the News until of course it’s all to late and people are starting to say “what’s that huge thing in the sky”.

Don’t panic though the chances of a direct strike is very slim but I will not be moving to the U.S.A. or Russia in the next 20 years, if it does strike the earth then it will be no more America...

Fortunately the size of the rock is not that big so it will not cause an Extinction Level Event and we as a species should fare ok after it all calms down, I am building a bunker and filling it full of tins of food, you never know when you might need it.
So get out your Telescopes out in 2029 for a show you will never forget...

April 13, 2029 first pass 21000 miles from earth

On that date, it will become as bright as magnitude 3.3, visible to the naked eye from rural and some darker suburban areas, visible with binoculars from most locations.

On Friday, April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass Earth within the orbits of geosynchronous communication satellites. It will return for another close Earth approach in 2036.

April 13, 2036. Possible impact with earth.

Possible impact effects.

NASA initially estimated the energy that Apophis would have released if it struck Earth as the equivalent of an estimated 880 megatons of TNT. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons. The exact effects of any impact would vary based on the asteroid's composition, and the location and angle of impact. Any impact would be extremely detrimental to an area of thousands of square kilometres, but would be unlikely to have long-lasting global effects, such as the initiation of an impact winter. Estimates of Apophis path if a 2036 Earth impact were to occur as part of an effort to develop viable deflection strategies. The result is a narrow corridor a few miles wide, called the path of risk, and it includes most of southern Russia, across the north Pacific (relatively close to the coastlines of California and Mexico), then right between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, crossing northern Colombia and Venezuela, ending in the Atlantic, just before reaching Africa. Using the computer simulation tool NEOSim, it was estimated that the hypothetical impact of Apophis in countries such as Colombia and Venezuela, which are in the path of risk, would have had more than 10 million casualties. An impact several thousand miles off the West Coast of the US would produce a devastating tsunami.

On April 16, 2008, NASA News Release 08-103 reaffirmed that its estimation of a 1 in 45,000 chance of impact in 2036 remains valid.

If I find any more news about this event I will amend this story as and when...