Always Check Your Variables.

Apophis is even more likely to hit Earth, according to a young student and verified by NASA. As part of his entry in a science competition, Nico Marquardt determined that one variable had not been considered in the probability of a Earth/Apophis collision...satellite collision reseting the asteroid's trajectory.

clipped from news.yahoo.com German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper AFP/NASA-HO/File Photo: This artist's rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt. A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected... BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported. NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right. The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.