MOSCOW, July 17 The fall of the asteroid Apophis could destroy an area comparable to the Russian region, a senior researcher at the Institute said in an interview Applied Astronomy (IPA) RAS Nikolay Zheleznov.
According to him, the consequences will be very serious, but this will not lead to a global catastrophe.
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"In order for a global catastrophe to happen, you need a body from one and a half kilometers across. But three-hundred-meter bodies are guaranteed to reach the Earth's surface,» Zheleznov said.
The astronomer compared the asteroid with the Chelyabinsk fireball: Apophis is about ten times larger in diameter, which means that the explosion during its hypothetical collision with the Earth may turn out to be a thousand times more powerful and amount to tens of megatons.
«The power of the explosion will already be measured in tens of megatons — enough to erase any state or region,» the agency's source added.
If Apophis falls into the ocean, then, according to the scientist, a giant tsunami will rise, which will wrap around the Earth several times.
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» Waves will reach several hundred meters, maybe up to a kilometer. They will simply wash away the entire coastline,” he predicted.
According to the latest calculations, the asteroid Apophis, discovered in 2004, should fly by on April 13, 2029 at a distance of 32 thousand kilometers from Earth. At about this distance from its surface, geostationary satellites fly.
Read the full text of Nikolai Zheleznov's interview >>