"Dieu du Chaos" : la Nasa surveille Apophis, astéroïde proche de la Terre

Buzz Plus

Un vaisseau spatial de la Nasa, qui est récemment revenu d'une mission sur l'astéroïde Bennu, a été relancé afin d'étudier son confrère Apophis, qui porte le nom du dieu égyptien du Chaos, alors que ce dernier se rapproche de l'orbite terrestre. - L'info en continu  https://buzzplus.fr/ Infos, news & actualités - L'information internationale en direct.

Transcript

00:00 A NASA spacecraft, which has recently returned from a mission on the asteroid Bennu,

00:04 was launched to study its brother Apophis,

00:07 which bears the name of the Egyptian god of chaos,

00:09 as it approaches the Earth's orbit.

00:12 The rocky body should pass less than 32,000 km from the surface of the globe on April 13, 2029.

00:18 Its name is not the most reassuring.

00:21 While the asteroid named Apophis,

00:23 named after the Egyptian god of chaos,

00:25 approaches the Earth's orbit,

00:27 a NASA spacecraft, which has recently returned from space,

00:30 was launched for a study mission of this rock about 370 meters in diameter,

00:35 announced on Friday, December 22 by the American Space Agency.

00:38 The date is set for April 13, 2029.

00:42 So it remains a little more than five years before the rocky body of about 40 to 50 million tons

00:47 approaches the blue planet,

00:49 at a distance lower than that which separates us from certain artificial satellites.

00:53 An extremely close flyover which,

00:56 as NASA recalls,

00:57 has never occurred in history since humanity has been able to observe

01:00 and record this type of astronomical phenomenon.

01:03 If in Egyptian mythology,

01:06 Apophis, god in the form of a snake and incarnation of darkness and the end of the world,

01:10 seeks to annihilate the divine creation,

01:12 the asteroid which bears his name however does not have the same project for the Earth.

01:15 But its passage,

01:17 planned at less than 32,000 km from the surface of the globe,

01:20 could make it visible to the naked eye in the eastern hemisphere,

01:23 covering the Asian continent,

01:24 the Indian Ocean,

01:26 Australia,

01:27 most of the African continent and the European continent,

01:30 part of the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica.

01:32 Explain the before, anticipate the after.

01:35 After a journey of 7 years and 4 billion km,

01:39 the space ship Osiris Rex,

01:40 which last September brought a sample of the naked asteroid,

01:44 still had fuel and thus set off on a mission to Apophis.

01:47 Cost of the mission extension, 200 billion dollars.

01:52 Several other destinations had been considered,

01:55 like Venus,

01:56 but it was Apophis that was retained.

01:58 An asteroid of type S,

02:01 composed of silicate and nickel-iron materials,

02:03 which is distinguished from asteroids of type C,

02:06 rich in carbon like the Bennu.

02:07 The space ship was renamed for the occasion to the Iriapex Origins,

02:12 Spectral Interpretation,

02:14 Resource Identification,

02:15 and Security,

02:16 Apophis Explorer.

02:17 On April 13, 2029,

02:20 Apophis will sail the Earth and will be permanently accompanied by the ship

02:24 which will approach up to 25 meters from its surface

02:26 to extract as much information as possible,

02:28 in order to study in particular how the surface is changing

02:31 by interacting with terrestrial gravity,

02:33 announced to Mi Simon,

02:35 scientific manager of the mission at Goddard Space Flight Center

02:38 of NASA in Greenbelt,

02:39 in Maryland.

02:40 As explained by NASA,

02:43 the close encounter of Apophis with the Earth

02:45 will change the orbit of the asteroid

02:46 and the duration of its 30.6-hour day.

02:50 This encounter could then cause earthquakes

02:52 and landslides to the surface of the asteroid,

02:55 which would allow in this case to stir up matter.

02:57 "We know that tidal forces and debris accumulation

03:01 are fundamental processes that could play a role

03:03 in the formation of planets,"

03:04 explains Danny Mendoza de la Justina,

03:07 chief researcher of the Oziri Apex mission

03:09 at the University of Tucson, Arizona.

03:11 "It could enlighten us on how we went from the debris

03:15 of the primitive solar system to entire planets.

03:19 While most of the potentially dangerous asteroids known,

03:21 of which the orbit is approaching less than 4.6 million km from the Earth,

03:25 are also type S,

03:27 the exploration of Apophis could contribute to research

03:29 in the field of planetary defense,

03:31 an absolute priority for NASA.

03:33 The hypothesis of a collision with the Earth is false.

03:36 The discovery, in 2004 at the Kitpik Observatory, Arizona,

03:41 of the gigantic aerolite god of chaos,

03:43 first aroused concern

03:45 and still feeds today some theories spread out

03:47 on social networks

03:48 concerning a alleged collision with the Earth.

03:51 "Apophis is coming, that's why they're building their bunker,"

03:55 one can read from a user of X, ex-Twitter.

03:58 In the early days of his study,

04:00 the asteroid had been classified at level 4 on the Turin scale,

04:04 serving to categorize from 0 to 10

04:06 the risks of impact from geocruisers,

04:08 such as asteroids or comets,

04:10 which made it a unique case.

04:11 But in December 2004,

04:14 a few months after the discovery of the asteroid,

04:17 the scientific community had shown

04:19 that it was ultimately very unlikely

04:20 that it would play the part of the troublemakers.

04:22 Even more, in June 2021,

04:26 the passage of Apophis to only 17 million kilometers from the Earth

04:29 has made it possible to definitively rule out the hypothesis of a collision,

04:32 NASA assuring that its orbit would certainly allow

04:34 to exclude any impact for at least the next 100 years at the very least.

04:37 Sweeping a denouement like a "don't look up",

04:40 the NASA Earth Near-Earth Objects Research Center

04:43 has even officially stripped Apophis

04:44 of the list of "celestial bodies at risk".

04:47 After the asteroid passed near Earth,

04:50 OSIRI APEX operated near it for the next 18 months

04:53 to study in particular the changes caused to Apophis

04:56 by its proximity to Earth.

Category

Transcript

Recommended