This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 7 badges
73 pts · Epic
Epic78 pts → Anomaly
Apophis, the 2029 close shave+26
Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit+18
Has a proper name+8
Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit+8
Near-Earth object+5
Tiny fragment (<1 km)+4
Stony asteroid+4
Total score73
5 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
🌠Near-Earth object· +5
🤏Tiny fragment (<1 km)· +4
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
⚱️Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit· +8
🪡Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit· +18
🧗Stony asteroid· +4
🐍Apophis, the 2029 close shave· +26
✨ Trivia
Handle with care
🛡️What 'hazardous' means. 'Potentially hazardous' is bookkeeping, not a prediction: it means the orbit passes within 0.05 AU of Earth's and the body is big enough to matter. Nothing on that list is known to be on a collision course.
☄️If it ever hit. A rock this size arriving at a typical 20 km/s would release around 2558 megatons — about 51.2 times the largest bomb ever detonated.
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.75 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Earth.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 324 days.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.75 and 1.1 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 3.2 football pitches across.
Standing on it
🦘Don't jump. Escape velocity here is only around 0.2 m/s. A determined jump would launch you off it and into your own orbit around the Sun.
Properties
albedo
0.35
aphelion au
1.1
designation
99942
diameter km
0.34
eccentricity
0.1911
full name
99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)
h mag
19.09
inclination
3.34
mean motion deg day
1.113
moid au
0.0001
name
Apophis
named
yes
orbit class
ATE
perihelion au
0.746
pha
yes
rotation period h
30.56
semi major au
0.9224
spec taxonomy
Sq
spect
Sq
About Apophis
Apophis is an epic neo. It has spectral type Sq and swings within 0.746 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Apophis is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Apophis is an epic neo
Apophis scores 73 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 7 science badges — Near-Earth object, Tiny fragment (<1 km), Has a proper name, Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit, Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit, Stony asteroid and Apophis, the 2029 close shave — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.