Word: asteroids
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...vigilant and largely unsung astronomers who scan the skies for asteroids that could threaten the Earth, there is some good news and some bad news about 2004MN4. This was the initial designation for an asteroid that caused a flurry of alarm among scientists when it was discovered last December apparently heading for a frightening rendezvous with our planet on April...
...Astronomers figured that there was a one in 50 chance that MN4 would actually strike the Earth. Such an impact by an asteroid estimated to be as large as 1300 feet across could devastate a large region and perhaps, depending on where it hit, cause millions of casualties and untold billions in property damage...
...wonder then that MN4 has been named Apophis, the Greek name for the Egyptian god of evil, destruction and darkness. But days after the initial discovery of the asteroid's trajectory, when astronomers found earlier, overlooked photos of the intruder in their archives and used them to refine estimates of its orbit, they were able to issue an all-clear. Apophis, it turns out, will come within as little as 15,000 miles from of Earth and will be visible to the naked eye in Europe and Africa on the evening of that April date, but will zoom safely past...
...there are still some reasons for concern. As it passes so close the asteroid, tugged by Earth's gravity, will change its orbital path. That could be very bad news. If the altered orbit results in Apophis passing through any of several "keyholes," specific regions of space only about 2,000 feet across, the asteroid would then return periodically to dangerously close encounters with Earth. Passage through the keyhole that astronomers think most likely to be the asteroid's target in 2029, for example, would bring it back to the near vicinity of Earth every seven years, beginning...
...pane of shatterproof glass. Maps published by the Florida Bureau of Geology in 1974 show a pit-like dip in the area's underground geological contours. Magnetic readings in the Everglades suggest the presence of a subterranean mass of metallic ore that could conceivably be the remains of an asteroid. Finally, scientific journals have noted that a commonly found rock stratum, called the Ocala formation, is suspiciously absent in southern Florida. Petuch suggests that it was hurled into the sky during impact...