In April 2029, a 340-meter asteroid named Apophis will pass closer to Earth than the satellites carrying our TV and weather data, about 32,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface.
Apophis, named for the Egyptian god of chaos, arrives on a Friday the 13th.
The cosmic rock is as wide as the Eiffel Tower is tall, and astronomers have been tracking Apophis for a while. In 2004, its odds of hitting Earth in 2029 were estimated at 1 in 37, almost a 3% chance. Years of careful tracking brought those odds to zero.
The European Space Agency says objects this large come this close only once every 5,000 to 10,000 years.
The asteroid will be visible without a telescope in Europe and western Asia, so you might want to start planning a trip to go see it.
This was originally posted as a New Arrival in Lowered Barriers to Entry · The Catalog · №008, an issue of my weekly newsletter The Catalog. You can Subscribe for weekly insights, or get in touch to talk about what this means for your business.