NASA is considering pulling a pair of shelved spacecraft out of storage to facilitate a non-agency mission to spy on notorious asteroid Apophis.
Apophis, also known as asteroid 99942, is a 1,100-foot (340-meter) asteroid set to fly by Earth in 2029. Named after the Egyptian god of chaos and destruction, the massive space rock was once predicted to have close to a 3% chance of hitting Earth. More recent calculations have downgraded the chances of that potential 2029 collision, but planetary defense scientists are still studying the asteroid closely to determine any future risk of an Earth impact.
