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NASA has confirmed exactly when a rare, colossal-sized asteroid will hurtle past Earth, coming closer to our planet than any other celestial object of its size in human history. The asteroid – called as Apophis, in what feels like an ill omen as it was named after the ancient Egyptian God of evil and destruction – will come very close to our planet in the not too distant future. This week the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – or, more commonly, NASA – confirmed the asteroid is on track to safely pass by Earth in 2029. It will light up the night’s sky to the naked eye on one what the superstitious consider to be one of the unluckiest days imaginable: Friday, April 13 (2029).
It will come within 20,000 miles of our planet’s surface — closer than the distance of many satellites in orbit. Or, to put it in laymen’s terms, that’s nearly 12 times closer than the moon’s average distance from Earth. When the Near-Earth asteroid was discovered in 2004, it appeared that Apophis might make impact with Earth in either 2029, 2036, or 2068. Since then, astronomers have closely watched Apophis using optical telescopes and ground-based radar, allowing its orbit to become better understood.