In the Hollywood blockbuster “Armageddon”, Bruce Willis and his co-stars are given just 18 days to destroy a vast asteroid which threatens to wipe out life on Earth – a desperately short space of time in which to save the planet.

Bruce Willis in Armageddon, 1998 

Now scientists say the world must come up with a similar emergency plan after an asteroid whistled within a whisker of the Earth on Tuesday, only two days after it was first detected by astronomers.

Space experts claim more extensive monitoring systems and an Armageddon-style protocol must be urgently set up, with an enormous asteroid measuring 300m across expected to make an even closer pass in 2029.

The Apophis asteroid, first detected in 2004, will come within 22,000 miles (36,000km) of Earth when it passes by – nearer to the Earth than television satellites and so close it can be seen with the naked eye as a burning point in the sky.

Although there is no chance of the asteroid colliding with Earth when it passes by on Friday, April 13 of that year, there is an extremely small chance it could fall into a gravitational loop and come back to hit the planet in 2038, scientists claimed.

The asteroid which passed by this week, known as 2012 XE54, passed by about 140,000 miles from Earth – roughly half the distance to the moon.

via ‘Armageddon’ plan needed for asteroid impacts – Telegraph.

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