Bigger than a sports arena, it comes frighteningly close to our planet every few years. By Christmas, Tholen had calculated that the chance Apophis would smash into Earth on April 13, 2029, was one in 40 Alarm about the threat started to spread to the public. Then, on December 26, 2004, a real catastrophe struck: the Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The public forgot about Apophis. Meanwhile, astronomers had found earlier images of the asteroid. The extra data enabled the scientists to calculate its orbit, and they discovered that It would actually fly safely by Earth in 2029. However, this alarming scenario started a race among scientists to find solutions to the threat of large objects striking Earth