No, asteroid 99942 Apophis will not hit Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029. Precise radar tracking conducted by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and international observatories has completely eliminated any chance of an impact for 2029, 2036, and for at least the next 100 years. NASA has officially removed Apophis from its Sentry Impact Risk Table.
Yet the real story of April 13, 2029, is extraordinary in its own right. On that Friday evening, a mountain of space rock roughly 1,100 feet (340 meters) across will skim past our planet at nearly 67,000 miles per hour, coming within 19,800 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth’s surface. That is closer than the ring of geostationary television and weather satellites orbiting above our heads. It will be the closest flyby of an asteroid this size in recorded human history, bright enough to be seen with the naked eye by more than two billion people across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Key takeaways
- Zero impact risk in 2029: Extensive optical and planetary radar data gathered through March 2021 proved that Apophis will safely miss Earth by roughly 19,800 miles (31,860 km).
- Closer than satellites: Apophis will pass well inside the orbit of high-altitude geostationary satellites (which orbit at 22,236 miles / 35,786 km), though its trajectory will not cross any active satellite orbits.
- Visible without a telescope: As it flies over the Eastern Hemisphere, it will appear as a bright, star-like pinpoint of light moving as fast as a commercial jet airliner across the night sky.
- Earth’s tidal forces: Earth’s gravitational tug will stretch and squeeze the asteroid during the encounter, likely triggering surface avalanches, altering its spin rate, and reshaping its long-term orbit around the Sun.
- Front-row science: NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s RAMSES mission are preparing to rendezvous with Apophis to study the asteroid before, during, and after its brush with Earth.
What is asteroid 99942 Apophis?
Asteroid 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid discovered on 19 June 2004 by astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Astronomers classified it as an Aten asteroid—a family of space rocks whose orbits cross Earth’s path as they travel around the Sun.
Shortly after its discovery, the International Astronomical Union named it after Apep (Apophis in ancient Greek), the mythical Egyptian serpent deity of darkness, destruction, and chaos who pursued the Sun god Ra across the heavens. The name was fitting: initial orbital calculations in late 2004 indicated that Apophis had an uncomfortably high probability of striking Earth.
Physically, Apophis is an elongated, peanut-shaped rubble-pile asteroid composed primarily of silicate rocks and metallic nickel-iron. It measures roughly 1,115 feet (340 meters) along its longest axis—comparable in size to the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Much like the viral panic surrounding the November 13, 2026 doomsday date, online headlines often strip away scientific context in favor of apocalyptic sensationalism.
Friday 13 April 2029: the flyby by the numbers
To grasp just how unusual the 2029 flyby is, consider the astronomical scale of close encounters. Most “near-Earth” asteroid flybys covered in the news pass several hundred thousand miles away—further than our Moon. Apophis, by contrast, is coming into our front yard.
| Celestial Body or Orbit | Distance from Earth’s Surface | Comparison to Apophis Flyby |
|---|---|---|
| International Space Station (ISS) | ~250 miles (400 km) | Low Earth Orbit |
| Asteroid 99942 Apophis (April 13, 2029) | ~19,800 miles (31,860 km) | Historical Close Encounter |
| Geostationary Satellites (TV / Weather) | 22,236 miles (35,786 km) | Apophis passes 2,400 miles inside this ring |
| The Moon | ~238,855 miles (384,400 km) | Apophis is 12 times closer than the Moon |
On the evening of 13 April 2029, Apophis will reach its closest approach at 21:46 UTC. Traveling at approximately 30 kilometers per second (67,000 miles per hour), it will cross the night sky faster than any large asteroid ever witnessed by modern civilization.
Why did scientists think it might hit? The gravitational keyhole story
If Apophis is safe today, why did it cause so much alarm in the first place? In December 2004, shortly after astronomers recovered the lost asteroid, orbital models calculated a startling 2.7% probability of an impact on 13 April 2029—a roughly 1-in-37 chance.
This triggered a Level 4 rating on the Torino Impact Scale, a hazard index from 0 to 10 used by astronomers to gauge collision threats. No other asteroid in history has ever reached Level 4. Subsequent observations in 2005 soon confirmed that Apophis would miss Earth in 2029, but a new, more subtle worry emerged: the gravitational keyhole.
A gravitational keyhole is a narrow corridor in space—sometimes only a few hundred meters wide—where Earth’s gravity tugs an asteroid’s trajectory by precisely the amount needed to send it into a direct collision on a subsequent orbit.
For over a decade, planetary scientists worried that if Apophis passed through a specific 800-meter keyhole during its 2029 encounter, Earth’s gravity would redirect it to strike our planet seven years later, on 13 April 2036. The mystery was finally put to rest in March 2021, when Apophis made an earlier, distant flyby. Astronomers at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia bounced powerful radar signals off the asteroid, pinpointing its orbit to within a few hundred feet.
The result was definitive: Apophis will completely miss the keyhole. There is no threat of an impact in 2029, 2036, 2068, or for at least the next hundred years.
Will you be able to see Apophis with the naked eye?
Yes. Asteroids of this size typically require powerful amateur telescopes to spot. But because Apophis will pass so close to Earth, reflected sunlight will make it shine at approximately visual magnitude 3.1—comparable to the stars in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper).
Over two billion people in Europe, Africa, and Western Asia will be able to step outside on the evening of Friday, 13 April 2029, and watch it cross the sky without any binoculars or equipment. It will not look like a fiery meteor or shooting star because it will not enter the atmosphere. Instead, it will look like a steady, bright star moving smoothly across the constellations, covering roughly the width of a full moon every minute.
What would happen if Apophis struck Earth? The real physics
While an impact has been ruled out, examining what *would* happen helps put real planetary defense in perspective. Apophis is not an “extinction-level” asteroid like the six-mile-wide Chicxulub impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. As explored in our breakdown of when the world will end according to science, humanity faces natural cosmic limits over billions of years, but medium asteroids represent regional hazards rather than species-ending catastrophes.
By contrast, an impact from an 1,100-foot asteroid like Apophis would release approximately 1,000 to 1,200 megatons of TNT equivalent—roughly twenty times the power of the largest thermonuclear bomb ever detonated (the Soviet Tsar Bomba). Here is what computer simulations show:
- On land: It would excavate a crater three to four miles in diameter, completely incinerating everything within a 30-mile radius and collapsing buildings across hundreds of square miles.
- In the ocean: An oceanic impact would generate colossal tsunami waves, devastating coastlines thousands of miles away.
- Atmospheric impact: Dust and particulate matter would enter the upper atmosphere, causing temporary regional climate cooling, but not a global collapse of agriculture or the extinction of our species. In Toby Ord’s landmark risk study The Precipice: A 1-in-6 Chance of Human Extinction, natural asteroid impacts represent less than 0.05% of total existential risk this century.
Front-row science: NASA OSIRIS-APEX and ESA RAMSES
Rather than a moment of catastrophe, scientists view the 2029 flyby as one of the greatest scientific opportunities in the history of astronomy. Space agencies have already launched or greenlit dedicated spacecraft missions to meet Apophis:
NASA OSIRIS-APEX: After NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully collected and returned samples from asteroid Bennu in September 2023, NASA redirected the surviving spacecraft on an extended mission renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Apophis Explorer). In 2029, the spacecraft will rendezvous with Apophis shortly after its flyby, orbiting it for 18 months and firing its thrusters to stir up surface dust for chemical analysis.
ESA RAMSES: The European Space Agency is developing the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES). RAMSES aims to meet Apophis *before* it reaches Earth, accompanying the asteroid as it flies past our planet. This will allow scientists to observe how Earth’s gravitational tidal pull physically stretches the asteroid, triggering “asteroid quakes,” uncovering buried subsurface ice, and altering its tumble.
While asteroid collisions are rare and predictable decades in advance, other cosmic phenomena occur on much shorter timescales—such as the Solar Maximum and geomagnetic superstorms that threaten electrical grids every 11 years.
Frequently asked questions
Will Apophis hit any communication satellites?
No. While Apophis will fly inside the orbital radius of geostationary satellites (which orbit at 22,236 miles / 35,786 km), space is three-dimensional. Apophis approaches Earth from above the equatorial plane on an inclined trajectory, ensuring it will pass thousands of miles clear of any operational weather, communications, or GPS satellites.
Could another asteroid push Apophis toward Earth?
A 2024 study by astronomers Paul Wiegert and Benjamin Proudfoot examined whether a collision with another small unknown asteroid could alter Apophis’s course before 2029. The calculated probability of such an impact shifting Apophis onto an Earth-collision trajectory was less than one in two billion—practically zero.
What is the Yarkovsky effect?
The Yarkovsky effect is a tiny force caused by sunlight heating an asteroid. As the asteroid rotates, it radiates that heat away into space, creating a minute thermal push that can subtly change its orbit over decades. In 2021, high-precision radar measurements successfully measured this drift on Apophis and proved it was too small to push it into Earth’s path.
Is there any threat in 2036 or 2068?
None. The potential impact risks for both 2036 and 2068 were officially ruled out in March 2021 following radar data from the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. NASA has confirmed Apophis poses zero impact hazard for at least the next century.
Sources and further reading
- NASA CNEOS: NASA Analysis Rules Out Any Impact Risk for Asteroid Apophis in 2029, 2036, and 2068
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: OSIRIS-APEX Mission to Apophis
- European Space Agency (ESA): RAMSES Mission for Planetary Defense
- The Planetary Society: The 2029 Close Flyby of Asteroid 99942 Apophis
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Written by Marcus Vance, founder and administrator of WorldToEnd. He has been analyzing global existential risks, catastrophic forecasts, and cosmic timelines for years, investigating the boundary between sensational media claims and empirical scientific reality. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will investigate.