Sept. 24, 2182: UA Scientists Calculate When Bennu Has Best Chance Of Striking Earth

Posted on August 25, 2021Comments Off on Sept. 24, 2182: UA Scientists Calculate When Bennu Has Best Chance Of Striking Earth
Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard
In 2135, asteroid Bennu will make a close flyby of Earth. Our planet’s gravity will tweak Bennu’s path, making it a challenge to calculate its future trajectory.

By Nicholas Gerbis

Published: Thursday, August 19, 2021 – 3:19pm
Updated: Friday, August 20, 2021 – 9:11am

While the University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission studied and sampled the asteroid Bennu, it was also helping scientists calculate if — or when — the half-kilometer body will one day slam into the Earth.

Their findings appear in the journal Icarus.

Sept. 24, 2182: In the next 300 years, that’s when Bennu has the best chance of striking Earth: roughly .05%.

To figure that out, the team accounted for everything from hundreds of gravitational nudges to minute thrusts from surface heating and particle ejection.

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