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“An object Bennu’s size … would pretty much devastate things up and down the coast.” -LINDLEY JOHNSONīennu is about one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide, and if it were to impact Earth, it could cause serious destruction. It’s currently almost 200 million miles away from us, but it’s expected to get within 125,000 miles in 2135 - that’s about half the distance between Earth and the moon. And with that incredibly detailed view of the asteroid, experts studying potential space rock impacts with Earth have been able to fine-tune their existing models of Bennus future. The Bennu asteroid : NASA discovered the Bennu asteroid in 1999. Right now, the PDCO is keeping a close eye on two particularly threatening space rocks, one of them being Bennu. If a large asteroid were to slam into Earth’s surface, though, the result could be devastating, so NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016 to detect and monitor any potentially dangerous asteroids and create a plan to prevent impacts, if possible.īennu is expected to get within 125,000 miles of Earth - about half the distance to the moon. The background: Our solar system contains more than a million asteroids, and most are tiny and highly unlikely to come anywhere near Earth. researchers put the chances of Bennu hitting Earth through the year 2200 at 1-in.
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NASA has just updated its predictions about the possibility of the asteroid Bennu slamming into Earth, even going so far as to pinpoint the exact date an impact is most probable: September 24, 2182. space agency NASA says new data on the asteroid Bennu still shows the object could one day hit Earth. This article was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.