. It was just after 9 p.m. on June 18, 2004, at an observatory in Arizona, U.S.A. David Tholen, an astronomer from the University of Hawaii, was scanning the sky for asteroids when he noticed an object headed in the direction of Earth. He and his colleagues hoped to take a closer look later that week but were unfortunately prevented by rain. By the time astronomers finally got another look at it in December of that years, they realized they had a problem.
The object was a large asteroid, which they named
Apophis after the Egyptian god of evil. Bigger than a sports arena, it comes frighteningly close to our planet every few years. By Christmas, Tholen had cloculated
that the chance Apophis would smash into Earth on April 13, 2029 , was one in 40. Alarm about the threat started to spread to the public.Then, on December 26, 2004, a real catastrophe struck:The Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed hundreds of Lives. The public forgot about Apophis.Meanwhile, Astronomers had found earlier images of the asteroid The extra data enabled the scientists to calculate its orbit, and they discovered that it would actually fly by Earth in 2029. However, this alarming scenario started a race among scientists to find solutions to the threat of large objects striking Earth.