What is 'God of Chaos'? Astronomer updates risk of giant asteroid hitting Earth in 2029

99942 Apophis or the ‘God of Chaos’ could hit Earth on Friday the 13th in 2029 on one condition, a new study reveals.

Can asteroid 99942 Apophis hit the Earth? Scientists so far have dismissed this possibility, but Canadian astronomer Paul Wiegert has discovered one condition that may set the giant asteroid on a collision course towards our planet. Nicknamed the “God of Chaos,” it is predicted to come as close as 18,300 miles to Earth in 2029.

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What is the ‘God of Chaos’? Will it hit Earth?

99942 Apophis, or the “God of Chaos”, is a 1,210-foot-wide near-Earth asteroid. First discovered in 2004, it is expected to fly by our planet on Friday the 13th (April 13, 2029). The massive space rock, which approaches Earth once every 7,500 years, earned its name from the demon serpent in ancient Egyptian mythology. Experts initially ruled out its chances of hitting the Earth on the dreaded date as 2.7%.

However, a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal notes that even a “small object” colliding with the asteroid could dramatically alter this. Wiegert, who co-authored the study alongside Benjamin Hyatt, examined the chances of another asteroid colliding with Apophis and changing its current path. According to their findings, an object as small as 0.6 meters or two-foot-wide could cause the “God of Chaos” to hit our planet at a later date.

For the asteroid to be set on a collision course directly towards Earth, the object must be about 3.4 metres in size. “The odds of an unseen small asteroid deflecting Apophis enough to direct it into a collision with Earth in 2029 are approximately 10-8. Given that only 5 percent of such impulses are in the correct direction to generate an Earth impact, the overall probability of a small impact directing Apophis into a collision with the Earth is less than one in two billion,” Wiegert explained.

Despite the chances of the asteroid hitting the Earth at a later date is less than one in a million, Wiegert noted that the risk of an impact persits. “An additional element of the story is that Apophis has been largely unmonitored by telescopes since May 2021 and will remain so through 2027,” Wiegert said, adding that this is due to “the relative geometry of Apophis, Earth, and the Sun, which puts the asteroid in the daytime sky for the time span in question.”