Planetary defense underway.

Europe and Japan have joined forces in a planetary defense plan against asteroids and comets and its objective is Apophis. They have signed a memorandum of cooperation for the Ramses mission, an acronym that refers to several Egyptian pharaohs with the name Ramses, but specifically this mission is going to study Apophis, which is an asteroid 375 m in diameter, according to the latest estimate, because the previous one was around 400 to 450.

The latest estimate, at least from the European Space Agency, is 375 m in diameter, which is already quite a lot, it could perfectly devastate a city if it impacted the Earth, luckily, for now it is going to impact, that does not mean that things will change. The agreements were signed on May 7 by the director general of the European Space Agency and by the president of HAXA, which is the Japanese Space Agency.

They did it at the Italian embassy in Berlin, Germany, I don't know why they chose the Italian embassy in Germany, I know why they chose Italy, because Italy is going to provide a lot of material for this Ramses mission, the thing is that they have signed this agreement and it is very good because we need information about Apophis.

Apophis will pass on April 13, 2029 practically touching the Earth at about 32,000 km away, that is less than a tenth of the distance that separates the Earth from the Moon and means that it will pass closer to the Earth's surface than many satellites are, since Apophis will enter the geostationary orbit which is 35,786 km high, where many satellites are located.

They are the satellites that are in a fixed position, since Apophis is going to pass even closer to the Earth than these satellites, it is not a destroyer of worlds, but if it falls on a city it would destroy it.

This mission will be launched in 2028, it will encounter the asteroid Apophis, it will do so before the flyby to Earth on April 13, 2029, there is no risk of impact, in this case, according to the European Space Agency it will be something extraordinary, something that happens approximately once every 5,000 years although well, this is not a calendar, maybe it will turn out that within 20 years we will have another asteroid that passes just as close, but on average to 5,000 years for an object of this size, because smaller asteroids have passed closer and some have impacted, for example, the case of Tonguska,

This asteroid will pass so close and is large enough to be visible to the naked eye. It is estimated that at least 2,000 million people will have the opportunity to see it with the naked eye and it will be a unique moment to talk about the topic of asteroids and the risk they pose.

The asteroid itself, for the Earth, is not a danger, but for the asteroid it is, the passage so close to the Earth is suspected to alter the asteroid's orbit, it is not very clear, because there is debate about whether it will alter it for the better or for the worse, for the better it would be if the Earth with the gravitational push launched the asteroid and sent it further away and it would no longer be a danger anymore, but the normal thing in these cases is that the trajectory of the asteroid is shortened, which in the next steps are more dangerous for the Earth, so there is the doubt.

Another thing that will happen is that the passage so close to the Earth will cause earthquakes on the surface, but from the asteroid, because the forces that unite the materials of this small asteroid are not gravitational, it does not have enough gravity to unite its rocks, its dust, whatever it carries with enough force, they are other types of forces that will be affected by the gravitational pull of the Earth.

And that is one of the things that scientists want to study, the earthquakes that the asteroid will suffer and how it will change both its trajectory and its appearance. All of this is going to be investigated because of course, it may happen that we are unlucky enough that this change in trajectory puts Apophis on a collision course with the Earth in the future.

So we will be attentive to see what happens.

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