There is a 1 in 2,700 chance that asteroid Bennu could hit Earth by 2182.
A new report reveals that an asteroid that NASA has been tracking for nearly 25 years could hit Earth in the future.
According to the OSIRIS-REx science team, which was first discovered in 1999, the near-Earth asteroid Bennu could enter the planet’s orbit and could hit the planet by September 2182.
Bennu passes close to Earth every six years and had three close encounters with Earth in 1999, 2005 and 2011, experts at ScienceDirect reported. studies.
According to scientists, there is a 1 in 2,700 or 0.037% chance that Bennu could hit Earth by 2182.
In October 2020, OSIRIS-REx — short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer — touched down briefly on Bennu’s surface, collected a sample, and then flew away from the asteroid.
The first asteroid sample taken in space from OSIRIS-REx landed on Earth on Sunday — crashing in Utah.
Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluyesi told ABC News that OSIRIS-REx will change what people know about the origin of our solar system.
“This is pure pristine material revealing the early secrets of the solar system. The long-term discovery would be to find biological molecules or even precursor molecules for life.”
It was the first mission of its kind for NASA.
If Bennu were to hit Earth, it would release 1,200 megatons of energy, which is 24 times more energy than most man-made nuclear weapons, according to IFLScience.
The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was as powerful as 10 billion atomic bombs, scientists revealed in 2019. Experts found evidence in massive chunks of rock that the asteroid was powerful enough to cause fires, tsunamis and spew so much dust into the atmosphere that it blocked out the sun .
ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke and Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
