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A relatively recent study has predicted the exact date when asteroid Bennu is most likely to impact Earth.
NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016 with the goal of having a team of individuals monitoring all asteroids that could be potentially dangerous to Earth. In addition, the team is also responsible for finding prevention methods if an asteroid turns out to be dangerous. Asteroid Bennu is classified as potentially dangerous because its orbits will be within 125,000 miles.
At present, Bennu is located about 200 million kilometers away, but according to Freethink.com, it was discovered that in the year 2135, the asteroid with a diameter of 0.31 mile to 6.2 miles will pass within 125,000 miles of Earth, about half the distance between the Earth and the Moon. PDCO Director Lindley Johnson spoke to The New York Times and said: “[A] an object the size of half a kilometer will create a crater at least five kilometers in diameter, and it can reach 10 kilometers in diameter.“
Add, “But the area of ​​devastation is going to be much, much larger than that, up to 100 times the size of the crater,” He continued. “So an object Bennu’s size impacting the east coast states would pretty much devastate things along the coast.“
NASA said the asteroid’s trajectory had never been modeled with this level of precision before, according to Davide Farnocchia, the study’s lead author.
“The OSIRIS-REx data gives us so much more precise information, we can test the limits of our models and calculate Bennu’s future trajectory with a very high degree of certainty until 2135. We have never modeled the trajectory of an asteroid with this precision before.“said Farnocchia.
While the study’s accuracy is solid, the researchers said Earth is safe from the asteroid despite how close it will pass. “I’m no more worried about Bennu than before“said Farnocchia.
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