NASA has an interactive solar system viewer where you can see the orbits of asteroids, comets, and of course planets. I've set the link to 2029 to get you in the ball park. It's a fun tool to play around with that gives a different perspective than a typical planetarium view since you view from different angles than just earth's surface
Wow, that is incredibly close. 20,000 miles is about how far you fly round-trip from JFK to Singapore.
> The OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft will dip toward the surface of Apophis and fire its engines to kick up loose rocks and dust
Just hearing this scares me (knowing nothing about orbital physics). I am just imagining a couple generations down the line astronomers saying, well, this asteroid used to not be a concern, except one time we went up there and kicked some rocks around, which accidentally set it onto a direct course for Earth in 2150..
Since we know it's going to come back around, couldn't we hit it with a couple of hydrogen bombs on it's way past us to ensure that it's knocked far off course for it's next orbit?
Most of them are pretty far away but there are a few each month within lunar orbit, about 400,000 km
> 2029's visit will be particularly close, with the asteroid coming within 32,000 kilometers (20,000 miles) of the Earth's surface, closer to the Earth than some of our satellites. The asteroid should be visible from the Eastern Hemisphere without the aid of a telescope or binoculars, with the European Space Agency dubbing its flyby "one of the rarest space events of our lives".