Nasa to send spacecraft to ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid as Apophis barrels toward Earth for never-before-seen ‘encounter’

NASA has identified a new area of interest, deciding to study the contents of an asteroid that is passing close by Earth.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will be renamed and used to study the asteroid instead of being retired.

Now going by OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer), the craft has just returned from a seven-year exploration to collect samples from the space rock Bennu.

On its second mission, the ship will investigate Apophis, an asteroid that is expected to be the largest to pass by Earth to date in 2029.

“We learned a lot at Bennu, but now we’re armed with even more questions for our next target,” Amy Simon, the mission’s project scientist, said in the NASA press release.

The asteroid is expected to pass within 20,000 miles of Earth’s surface on April 13, 2029, which is closer than some satellites orbit the planet.

Scientists predict that the asteroid’s proximity to Earth could provide some answers to long-asked questions, like planet formation.

“The close approach is a great natural experiment,” Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina, principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX, said in a NASA press release.

“We know that tidal forces and the accumulation of rubble pile material are foundational processes that could play a role in planet formation,” they continued.

“They could inform how we got from debris in the early solar system to full-blown planets.”

Apophis is named after the Egyptian God of Chaos and measures in at 1,000 feet across.

When it was originally discovered in 2004, scientists predicted a 3% chance that the massive asteroid would collide with Earth, but have since discovered that there is no chance it does so.

“OSIRIS-APEX will study Apophis immediately after such a pass, allowing us to see how its surface changes by interacting with Earth’s gravity,” said Simon.

This is because as Apophis passes Earth, it will likely experience changes to the asteroid’s surface allowing more material to be studied.

For two weeks leading up to the space rock passing Earth, OSIRIS-APEX will take pictures of the approaching Apophis.

Then the research ship will reach April 13, 2029, and continue studying it for a year and a half.

Upon reaching the surface, the ship will not touch down, rather using its thrusters to kick up the asteroid’s surface and expose material for scientists to sample.