Asteroid Bennu is a giant in the sky that might represent a danger for future generations of humans. According to scientists, Bennu is expected to come near our planet by the year 2300, and according to many estimations, there is an actual chance Earth will collide with it, which could prove disastrous.
However, scientists have some good news. Based on recent calculations they can say with confidence that the asteroid almost certainly will avoid Earth. The data from the OSIRIS-REx mission was used in order to determine that there is in fact one chance in 1750 to get hit by the asteroid, which would represent about 0.057%. The latest NASA predictions are more accurate than any previous ones as researchers have relied on new precise methods of calculation.
“The OSIRIS-REx data give us so much more precise information, we can test the limits of our models and calculate the future trajectory of Bennu to a very high degree of certainty through 2135. We’ve never modeled an asteroid’s trajectory to this precision before,” explained Davide Farnocchia, an engineer at NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. Researchers were able to calculate exact dates, and they determined that the most “dangerous” day for humanity will in fact be September 24, 2182, with a 0.037% chance that Bennu will hit our planet.
This time scientists took into account various influences, including the gravitational pull of our planet, as well as Sun’s gravitation and the solar wind, the impact of other planets and their satellites and even other asteroids. While the new calculations reveal that our chances of getting hit by the asteroid are higher than initially expected, it remains improbable that our planet will be impacted by Bennu at one point in the future.
