An asteroid that NASA scientists are classifying as potentially hazardous is scheduled to fly near Earth on Wednesday, but experts are using the opportunity to study the asteroids for future reference .
The 270 meter-wide asteroid Apophis, named after the ancient Egyptian spirit of evil, darkness and destruction, has been calculated to have the potential to unleash an explosion 100,000 times more powerful than the first atomic bomb that detonated in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 during World War II if it ever hit Earth.
Buzz around the asteroid began in 2004, when NASA told the public that the massive asteroid had a roughly 1-in-300 chance of hitting the Earth.
At the time, NASA noted that while the odds of impact where "unusual enough" to warrant a closer look, the public should not be concerned.
Scientists were initially frightened that the deadly asteroid could strike the earth in 2029, which they projected would have a significant effect on the Earth's atmosphere, but since then the odds have decreased of such an event happening then.
However, the small chance, roughly 1 in 250,000, is still open for the space rock to hit Earth in 2036, scientists say.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, while the asteroid passes 14.5 million kilometers over earth will provide scientists with a rare chance to study the space rock more closely.
NASA will use deep-space radars at Goldstone, located in the Mojave desert in California, and Arecibo in Puerto Rico to scan the asteroid.
"Using new measurements of the asteroid's distance and line-of-sight velocity, we hope to reduce the orbital uncertainties and extend the interval over which we can compute the motion into the future," NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Lance Benner told the AFP news agency in an email.
"It's possible that the new measurements improve the orbit to the point that we can completely rule out an impact."
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