Asteroid-tracking proposal wins $25,000 prize
A design for a low-cost spacecraft to rendezvous with and track the potentially Earth-threatening asteroid Apophis has won a $25,000 prize from a non-profit space advocacy organisation. The group hopes the prize will spur the world's space agencies to plan missions to protect the planet from potentially dangerous impacts.
The 250-metre asteroid 99942 Apophis will pass near Earth in 2029. If it passes through a "keyhole" in space a few hundred metres wide, then its trajectory will be altered in just the right way for it to hit Earth seven years later in 2036. The chance of this happening is small – just 1 in 45,000 – but if it were to hit, Apophis is big enough to cause serious damage.
