It has a diameter of 500 meters and travels at a speed of 100,000 km / h towards the Earth. The asteroid Bennu will pass very close to us in the year 2135, but the probability of it colliding is still very low.
NASA reported this week that in just over 100 years, Bennu will be close to Earth, half the distance of our planet from the Moon. The US space agency added that the side effects, about 2,300, would still be within a minute and “chance” limits in 1750.
Discovered in 1999, Bennu is one of two known asteroids in our solar system that pose the greatest danger to Earth, according to NASA.
Two years of grades
The US space agency’s Osiris-Rex probe spent two years in orbit around Bennu and left last May to bring back samples collected during a few seconds of contact with Earth.
The samples are scheduled to reach Earth in 2023. The mission made it possible to closely study the asteroid and significantly improve predictions of its future path.
Scientists concluded that in the year 2300, the chances of hitting the Earth were only 0.057%. “In other words, this means that there is a 99.94% chance that Bennu is not on a collision course,” said David Farnocchia, a scientist in NASA’s Near-Earth Object Studies. “So you don’t have to worry too much.”
Live: Hear an important scientific update on # Osirisrix, mission to return the asteroid sample that was #ToBennuAndBack: https://t.co/z1RgZwQkWS pic.twitter.com/kiQGejO0ny
– NASA (@NASA) August 11, 2021
“Gravity Keyhole”
The fact is that in September 2135, Bennu will pass close to the Earth. This will give you the possibility to cross the so-called “gravitational keyhole”: a region that, due to the influence of our planet’s gravity, would slightly alter the course of the asteroid, thereby setting it in its own course. future collision.
Prior to the Osiris-Rex mission, 26 “keyholes” were likely a kilometer or more on the way to Bennu em 2135. Graças às análises permite-se pela sonda Osiris-Rex, os cientistas podem apenas exclude 24. O últimos must.
According to them, the most likely date for the impact would be in the year 2,182. If that happens, the event will be disastrous. “The size of the crater is usually 10 to 20 times the size of the object,” said Lindley Johnson of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, or crater 5 to 10 km in diameter, for Bennu. “But the area of destruction would be much larger than that, up to 100 times the size of the crater,” he said.
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