The most dangerous asteroid - Apophis

AUTHOR: Abish Nursulta, Syrgabayev Dastan

Abstract

The problem of a potential fall of a celestial body on the Earth has always been threating the planet with significant damages ranging from cultural to economic; an “99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)” asteroid is one of those potentially harmful asteroids to the Earth. Though the potential threat the asteroid poses has already been researched, its future trajectory and orbit has not been yet fully plotted. This research is focused on researching and plotting the trajectory thus studying the dangerousness of an “99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)” asteroid by theoretical analysis and by using the “Matlab” environment of mathematical modeling. With the regard to a trajectory, an evolution diagram of the parameters of its orbit was discovered. According to the research results, the simulation has showed that the trajectory of the asteroid Apophis over the duration of the period between 2021 and 2068 changes negatively in the inclination of the orbit over time. An analysis of the trajectories of motion by various researchers showed that the probability of a collision of 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4) with the Earth is small in 2029, but there is still a possibility of a collision on April 12, 2068. We assume that the changes in the orbit are the result of the Earth’s gravitational forces and the research produced a possible trajectory and showed that the Apophis asteroid, due to the plotting, is capable of colliding with Earth and thus can be considered dangerous.