Asteroid Bennu is a huge asteroid the size of NYC’s Empire State Building. NASA’s latest report confirms that Bennu could hit earth sometime in the 2100s. Here is what you need to know about this asteroid.
How close to Earth will Asteroid Bennu come?
According to scientists, the asteroid will come inside the 125,00 miles of our planet by 2135. This is half the distance between earth to the moon. Additionally, a video from NASA’s Goddard shows how close this is. Although due to an event called ‘gravitational keyhole’, Bennu could be rent in a different route and intersect with Earth after 2635.
What are the chances of destruction?
The far-reaching day for the strike is on or around September 24, 2182. However, researchers have explained that the chance of Bennu hitting Earth is only 0.037 percent. They also assured that this event will not lead to a total extinction but, could cause colossal damage.
“So, a half-kilometer-sized object is going to create a crater that’s at least five kilometers in diameter, and it can be as much as 10 kilometers in diameter. But the area of devastation is going to be much, much broader than that, as much as 100 times the size of the crater,” said Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer at NASA.
What does the research say?
The recent NASA report on the subject was based on data tracked by the OSIRIS-REx mission. “OSIRIS-REx’s many accomplishments demonstrated the daring and innovative way in which exploration unfolds in real-time. The team rose to the challenge, and now we have a primordial piece of our solar system headed back to Earth where many generations of researchers can unlock its secrets,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for Science at the NASA HQ.
The spacecraft studied the asteroid for a period of two years until May 2021, when it headed back to drop the rock and dirt samples collected from the asteroid’s surface. OSIRIS-REx will reach Earth in 2023.