![]() “If you want to be able to predict where is going to go in the future, that prediction is entirely determined by how well you can measure where it is today,” she says. University of Arizona planetary scientist Amy Mainzer, an expert on near-Earth asteroids who wasn’t involved with the study, lauded the team’s “absolutely white-glove” calculations. No other object in the solar system has that level of fidelity to its orbital solution-even Earth!” “We know where it’s going to be over 100 years into the future, within meters. ![]() “Bennu is by far the best characterised asteroid in the solar system,” says University of Arizona planetary scientist Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator and the study’s senior author. That level of precision is like measuring the distance between the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower to within a few thousandths of an inch. The team-led by Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory-reached its revised estimate by pinpointing Bennu’s distance from Earth to within about seven feet at dozens of times between 20. On that Tuesday, Bennu has about a 1-in-2,700 chance of hitting Earth. Nearly all of the riskiest encounters with Bennu will occur in the late 2100s and early 2200s, with the single likeliest impact coming on the afternoon of September 24, 2182. The study finds a 1-in-1,750 chance of a future collision over the next three centuries-a slightly higher probability than previously estimated. The researchers then analysed the impact hazard between now and the year 2300. In a new study published in the scientific journal Icarus, scientists used data from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to make a precise calculation of Bennu’s orbit and its future proximity to our home planet. But hundreds of years from now, there is a small chance that Bennu could slam into Earth. The asteroid, about a third of a mile wide at its equator, poses no immediate threat to our planet. Scientists expect to further improve the assessment of Bennu's Earth impact risk in 2037, when the asteroid will make a close approach to Earth and allow them to collect radar data.For hundreds of millions of years, a top-shaped rubble pile called Bennu has orbited the sun in relative isolation. It takes about 1.2 years to fully orbit the sun and rotates once every 4.3 hours. The probe is expected to return its Bennu surface sample, described by NASA as "pristine and precious cargo," to Earth on September 24, 2023.īennu comes close to Earth once every six years, and orbits at an average speed of around 63,000 miles per hour. The OSIRIS-REx probe began slowly drifting away from Bennu in April this year and set off on a two-year cruise back to Earth around a month later. Crucially, it also grabbed a surface sample. Sample From the Surfaceįor these reasons Bennu was selected as the target for OSIRIS-REx, and from late 2018 until earlier this year a probe had been circling the space rock to gather as much data as it could on its orbital path, size and shape, mass, composition and spin. Plus, at 510 meters (1,673 feet) from pole to pole, Bennu is suitably large for an investigatory mission. On and beneath its pitch black surface, Bennu may contain chemicals and rocks from the birth of the solar system. That means it's both very old-scientists think it formed over 4.5 billion years ago-and rich in carbon and might contain organic compounds. What's more, it is a rare type of asteroid known as a B-type. For one thing, the asteroid's average orbital distance from the sun is around 105 million miles, which is relatively close to that of the Earth at 93 million miles. Impact threats aside, Bennu is of scientific importance for a number of reasons. ![]() NASA describes the asteroid as one of the two most hazardous in the solar system, even though the impact risk is still very low. ![]() NASA Is Recruiting for a Mars Simulation Mission: Here's How to Apply.Where to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower 2021 Peak, in Person and Online.A Timeline of Boeing's Starliner Problems as NASA Eyes Mid-August Launch.
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