A relatively new study has been able to predict the exact date of the asteroid Bennu most likely to affect Earth.
NASA created the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016 with the goal of a team of individuals controlling asteroids that could be potentially dangerous to Earth. In addition, the team also has the task of looking for prevention methods if an asteroid is considered dangerous. The asteroid Bennu is classified as potentially dangerous, as its orbits will reach less than 125,000 miles.
At the moment, Bennu is about 200 million miles away, but according to him Freethink.comIt was discovered that in 2135 the asteroid that was between 0.31 miles and 6.2 miles in diameter will pass less than 125,000 miles from Earth, or about half the distance between Earth and the Moon. PDCO Director Lindley Johnson spoke to the New York Times and said: “[A] a half-kilometer object will create a crater that is at least five kilometers in diameter and can reach up to 10 kilometers in diameter.“
Adding “But the area of devastation will be much, much wider than that, up to 100 times the size of the crater,“it continued”.Therefore, an object that Bennu’s size impacted on the East Coast states would virtually devastate things up and down the coast.“
NASA has said the asteroid’s trajectory had never been modeled to this level of accuracy, according to Davide Farnocchia, the study’s lead author.
“OSIRIS-REx data provide us with much more accurate information, that we can test the limits of our models and calculate the future trajectory of Bennu to a very high degree of security until 2135. Never before have we modeled the trajectory of a asteroid with that precision.Farnocchia said.
While the accuracy of the study is solid, researchers have said the Earth is safe from the asteroid despite how close it will pass. “I don’t care more about Bennu than beforeFarnocchia said.
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