Asteroid Bennu Will Pass Earth in the 22nd century.

NASA spacecraft collected data about the visit of the potentially hazardous Asteroid Bennu reveals future generations have to monitor the big space rock as it makes close passes by Earth in the 22nd century.Researchers used information from the Osiris-Rex mission that spent over two years orbiting, studying and even sampling Asteroid Bennu to get a better idea of its future path through the inner solar system. They found the minute chance the 518 meter boulder will impact our planet in the future is slightly higher than previously assumed.

That probability is about 1 in 1,750, or 0.06%, between now and the year 2300, and we can rule out any chance of impact between today and 2135. That’s the year Bennu will come closer to Earth than the moon in September. Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies said that they are not any more concerned about Asteroid Bennu than I was before. The impact probability remains small.

Farnocchia explained there’s no threat of a collision during that close pass, but before Osiris-Rex, there had been some significant uncertainty about how some effects, like our planet’s gravity, could alter Bennu’s path, perhaps making a later impact more likely.The research team used the Osiris-Rex data to look at the possible influence of the spacecraft itself the models say it didn’t alter the asteroid’s path to the tiny force that the sun’s heat can exert on a small body, which is called the Yarkovsky effect.

Farnocchia, Chesley and several other colleagues authored a study on Bennu’s future travels that’s published in the latest edition of the journal Icarus. Specifically, Sept. 24, 2182, is the most significant single date on Bennu’s itinerary because it has a .04% chance of impacting Earth that day.