Revision History

Asteroid 99942 Apophis, a 370-meter rock weighing roughly 27 billion kilograms, will pass just 31,600 km above Earth's surface on April 13, 2029 — closer than the geostationary satellite belt at 35,786 km. Once feared as a potential impactor with a 2.7% chance of collision, two decades of refined observations have ruled out any impact for at least 100 years, but the flyby has become a once-in-a-millennium scientific opportunity that NASA and ESA are racing to exploit with dedicated spacecraft missions.