Asteroid Bennu has a 1 in 1750 chance of crashing into Earth, according to NASA

Data collected during the visit of a NASA spacecraft to potentially dangerous asteroid Bennu reveals that future generations will want to keep a close eye on the great space rock as it passes close to Earth in the 22nd century.

The researchers used information from the Osiris-Rex Mission who spent over two years in orbit, studying and even sampling Bennu to get a better idea of ​​his future path through the inner solar system. They found that the slim chance that the 1,700-foot-wide (518-meter) boulder would impact our planet in the future is actually slightly higher than previously thought, but still nothing to lose sleep over. .

“I’m no more concerned about Bennu than before,” Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (Cneos) told reporters on a call Wednesday. “The likelihood of impact remains low.”

This probability is about 1 in 1750, or 0.06%, by the year 2300, and we can rule out any chance of impact between now and 2135. This is the year Bennu will come close. of the Earth than the Moon in September.

Farnocchia explained that there was no threat of collision during this close passage, but before Osiris-Rex there was significant uncertainty about how certain effects, like the gravity of our planet, might alter the Bennu’s trajectory, perhaps making a later impact more likely.

The research team used the Osiris-Rex data to examine everything from the possible influence of the spacecraft itself – models say it did not alter the asteroid’s trajectory – to a tiny force that the heat of the sun can exert on a small body, called the Yarkovsky effect.

“The effect on Bennu is equivalent to the weight of three grapes constantly acting on the asteroid,” says Steve Chesley, principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Small, yes, but important in determining the chances of Bennu’s future impact over the decades and centuries to come.”

Farnocchia, Chesley and several other colleagues wrote a study on Bennu’s future travels published in the latest edition of the journal Icarus.

Basically, the new research allows humanity to continue to kick Bennu’s anxiety further down the road. We can now say for sure that there is nothing to fear until 2135, and probably nothing to fear until at least 2300, but you can bet that researchers in the years to come will take a close look at the plans. of the asteroid’s trip for September 2182.

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Specifically, September 24, 2182 is the most important date in Bennu’s itinerary, as it has a 0.04% chance of impacting Earth on that day. Another way to look at it, of course, is that there’s a 99.96 chance it won’t affect us.

“We shouldn’t worry too much about it,” reiterates Farnocchia. “We have time to continue tracking the asteroid.”

Indeed, but let’s just make sure that a copy of the study ends up in every apocalypse-proof bunker around the world, in case the unlikely event that CNET and the internet doesn’t exist in 2182.

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