© NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/CSA/York/MDA via APThis undated image made available by NASA shows the asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. On Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, scientists said they have a better handle on asteroid Bennu’s whereabouts for the next 200 years. The bad news is that the space rock has a slightly greater chance of clobbering Earth than previously thought. But don’t be alarmed: Scientists reported that the odds are still quite low that Bennu will hit us in the next century.
NASA scientists are predicting a chance that asteroid Bennu will strike Earth in the future, potentially affecting an area the size of Texas.Bennu is a Near-Earth Object (NEO) that passes by the planet roughly every six years, and experts have been watching it since it was discovered in September 1999.
According to
scientists, Bennu has a chance to pass through what they call a "gravity keyhole," which would send it on a collision course with Earth in the year 2182.
A
new paper from the OSIRIS-REx science team predicts Bennu has a
0.037% chance (1 in 2,700) of hitting Earth; this will largely depend on another flyby. In 2135, Bennu will zoom past Earth just close enough that our planet's gravitational pull could affect it in just the right way to put it on a path to hit us on Sept. 24, 2182 — almost 159 years to the day from this writing.