NASA says that four asteroids which astronomers described as being ‘uncomfortably close’ will zoom past Earth on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, and Saturday, August 10, 2024, the New York Post reports.

The first three flying by on Tuesday are described as being airplane-sized. This includes one that will pass within 1.1 million miles of Earth and is 84 feet (ca. 26 m) long. The second, at 110 feet (ca. 34 m) in size, will fly within 2.1 million miles, and the third, which is 140 feet (ca. 43 m) in size, will zoom by at 2.3 million miles out.

Then on Saturday, a 600-foot asteroid will zip by Earth at a distance of 3.4 million miles.

While these seem like massive distances, in astronomical terms they are not.

As Alex Mitchel points out in his article for the New York Post, “These current events are just rolling out the red carpet for a projectile that’s had the space administration sweating for some time.”

Of course, he is referring to a massive asteroid called Apophis, which is scheduled to show up on April 13, 2029.

And yes, that is a Friday.

The 1,100-foot asteroid is named after the Egyptian god, Apophis, who is described as the “demon serpent who personified evil and chaos.”

At this point, astronomers expect it will skim within 20,000 miles (32,186.88 kilometers) of our planet. It will be so large and so close that people will be able to see it with their naked eye. Scientists are also concerned that Apophis’ close trajectory may induce earthquakes.

Apophis is expected to make a return trip in 2036.

In his vision of the end times recorded in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John saw at least three events (stars falling from the sky) that could potentially be interpreted as asteroids hitting the Earth.

Wormwood

I believe one of them, wormwood, is clearly a reference to a nuclear attack (Revelation 8:10-11).

John describes it as torch-like, meaning it’s long and narrow, or missile-shaped. This could easily be describing an ICBM that leaves the earth’s atmosphere before reentering in a ball of flame and unleashing its nuclear payload. John used the word star because there was no other word in his first-century vocabulary that even came close to describing it.

John may also be referring to radiation when he says that the star which he called wormwood transferred its wormwood to Earth, contaminating the water and killing people.

Multiple stars hitting the earth

A second passage talks of multiple stars hitting the earth, which John likens to a mighty wind hitting a fig tree with unripe figs (Revelation 6:12-17).

While the earth routinely goes through asteroid belts that could easily cause this, I tend to favor nuclear strikes, because John saw the politicians and the rich and famous hiding in caves as a result. This could be describing underground nuclear bunkers that are prevalent today.

We also have a subtle military angle in this passage when John specifically notes that commanders or generals were also hiding in these bunkers (Revelation 6:15).

The fiery mountain

The third reference to a star hitting the earth is clearly an asteroid when John saw “something like a great mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea” (Revelation 8:8).

Nothing man-made fits this description, and the destruction after hitting one of the earth’s oceans, killing a third of the seal life, and destroying a third of the ships is definitely asteroid-like.

Apophis fits John’s description of a mountain-sized asteroid. It is one of the many asteroids in our solar system that NASA and other space agencies are currently tracking.

However, not all of them are visible. Some asteroids, like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013, are totally invisible to astronomers because they are coming in on a trajectory from the sun.

In the Book of Revelation, John is giving advance warning that a massive asteroid will hit Earth, and when this happens, we will all know that we are firmly in the middle of the end-time apocalypse.

On a related note: