NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX mission will rendezvous with Apophis in mid-2029, following the asteroid’s historically close flyby of Earth.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
ARTIST’S CONCEPT - Asteroid Apophis tumbles through space, eclipsing the Milky Way and its satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
OSIRIS-APEX will rendezvous with asteroid Apophis in mid-2029, following its historically close flyby with Earth.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Top-down animation of asteroid Apophis and OSIRIS-APEX flying past Earth on April 13, 2029.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
During the 2029 flyby, Apophis will pass about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon – closer than any asteroid of its size in recorded history. In this animation, the asteroids are to scale with each other but not to scale with the Earth and the Moon.
VERTICAL VERSIONNASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Apophis is an elongated asteroid with an average diameter slightly larger than the height of the Eiffel Tower. Its longest axis is about 450 meters, while its shortest axis measures only 170 meters.
VERTICAL VERSIONNASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
This top-down view of Earth and the Moon’s orbit shows Apophis during its April 13, 2029 Earth flyby, followed by the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft on its way to rendezvous with the asteroid.
Kel Elkins
This side view of Earth and the Moon’s orbit shows Apophis during its April 13, 2029 Earth flyby followed by the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft on its way to rendezvous with the asteroid. The view illustrates how OSIRIS-APEX’s Earth flyby adjusts the plane of its orbit to match that of Apophis.
Kel Elkins
This view of Earth and the Moon’s orbit shows Apophis during its April 13, 2029 Earth flyby followed by the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft on its way to rendezvous with the asteroid. The camera transitions from a top-down view to a side view.
Kel Elkins
This closer view of the Apophis and OSIRIS-APEX Earth flybys also depicts active satellites around Earth as faint cyan trails.
Kel Elkins