Overview
- The asteroid Apophis, which will make its closest approach on April 13, 2029, is predicted to pass about 32,000 kilometers above Earth's surface, inside the altitude of many geostationary satellites.
- NASA and ESA have confirmed there is no risk of impact during the 2029 flyby and assess no collision threat for at least the next 100 years.
- A multinational campaign of spacecraft and ground assets — including NASA's retargeted OSIRIS-APEX, ESA's Ramses, JAXA's DESTINY+ and radar networks such as Goldstone — is being prepared to observe changes caused by Earth's gravity.
- Scientists expect the close pass to change Apophis's spin, trigger surface movement and lengthen its orbital period from about 0.9 years to roughly 1.2 years, shifting its classification from an Aten to an Apollo object.
- The encounter offers a rare chance to test planetary‑defense tracking and to study asteroid structure up close, and it will be visible as a bright moving point from dark sites in parts of Europe, Africa and western/central Asia about an hour before closest approach.