is believed to April 13, 2029 (Friday the 13th) Apophis will be so close to reaching a magnitude of 3.3, so it can be easily identified with the naked eye. This close encounter will be visible in a wide area covering Europe, Africa and western Asia. In July 2005, former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, as chairman of the B612 Foundation, formally asked NASA to consider the possibility that the orbit of the asteroid after 2029 could be in orbital resonance with Earth, which increases the probability of future impacts. For this to happen, Apophis would pass in a precisely determined (And very small) region of space during the flyby of 2029, a "gravitational keyhole" no more than 600 meters wide. Schweickart asked for an investigation into the need to place a transponder sull'asteroide that would draw its orbit more precisely defining the possible influence Yarkovsky effect [2].
In February 2007, Schweickart has announced that the threat Apophis hitting the Earth April 13, 2036, is becoming so real that the United Nations will be invited to act as a coordinator of an international space mission based on an innovative project of a "gravitational tractor" to deflect the body and avoid the possible impact our planet.
In reality, since August 2006 thanks to new observations it was possible to further reduce the probability of impact in raising the risk level 0.
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