![]() Johnson said about 40 percent of the near-Earth asteroids the size of Bennu remain to be found. Its orbit crosses Earth’s, and as soon as it was discovered in 1999, planetary scientists could see that it posed a potential danger to our planet.īut a greater danger could come from the asteroids not yet seen. But they also chose it in part because Bennu is what is known as a near-Earth asteroid. ![]() It likely formed in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and has drifted much closer to Earth since then. Mission managers chose Bennu in part because it appears to be laden with the types of carbon molecules that may have provided the building blocks of life on Earth. Bennu likely broke off from a much larger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years ago. with the sample to Earth, dropping it in the Utah desert in September 2023. OSIRIS-REX’s observations also enabled calculations of the small forces imparted on Bennu caused by the heating and cooling of the surface. Bennus estimated chance of hitting Earth prior to the year 2300 is now 1 in 1,750 slightly greater than the previous probability of 1 in 2,700, but still quite low. This 3D view of asteroid Bennu was created by the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter. This let them improve the estimate of Bennu’s position in 2135 by a factor of 20. Scientists have calculated the probability that the potentially hazardous Bennu asteroid hits Earth between 20 after studying it for more than two years. ![]() Farnocchia and his colleagues were able to precisely pin down the asteroid’s orbit. ![]() When the spacecraft was in orbit around Bennu, Dr. The spacecraft left Bennu three months ago and is now headed back toward Earth to drop off samples of rock and dirt it collected from the asteroid for detailed laboratory study by scientists. The improved probabilities come courtesy of NASA’s OSIRIS-REX spacecraft, which spent two years studying Bennu up close. China plans mass rocket launch to divert asteroid that could wipe out life on Earth. ![]()
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