Sept. 24, 2182: UA Scientists Calculate When Bennu Has Best Chance Of Striking Earth
Posted on August 25, 2021 By Wormwood ProphecyComments 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 â or when â 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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