NASA has identified an asteroid that could collide with Earth

the asteroid benno500 meters in diameter And one of the main known space threats, It could collide with Earth as of the year 2135, although the probability is “extremely slim”.

the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission I managed to predict Benno’s path for centuries to come, accurately two meters, and estimated it In the year 2135, the asteroid will pass closer to the Earth than the moon itself.

from this moment, Space rock can cross ‘gravity key hole’ (gravity keyhole) It would change course and take it straight to Earth.

A gravitational keyhole is a region of space in which a planet’s gravity changes the asteroid’s orbit. NS According to NASA models, there are very few “eyes” that humans have to pay attention to.

“We must bear in mind that the probability of impact, in general, is really small”, explained during the conference by Davide Farnocchia, lead author of the study.

NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies announced a press conference on Wednesday to communicate An “important discovery” whose effects will not go unnoticed for more than a century.

In fact, it isNASA has increased the odds of a frightening collision, although they are still very small: From now until the year 2300, Bennu’s chance of hitting Earth is 1 in 1750, 0.057%.

The point of maximum risk in one day will be September 24, 2182, with a probability of 0.037%.

Farnocchia, who believes that although Bennu would ignore most other “eyes”, analyzed Farnocchia, This possibility still exists.

Although the chance of impact is small, NASA has announced the DART mission, through which it intends to design a half-ton ship that can change the course of asteroids when they collide with them or against one of their “moons”.

We must remember that The risk of Bennu as a single asteroid is lower than that of undiscovered objects of similar size. This is why NASA goes to great lengths to detect more than 90% of NEOs larger than 140 meters,”

Protecting the planet appears to represent a new stage in the space race. a few weeks ago, China planned to launch 23 missiles to deflect the asteroid Bennu, which is now more than 320 million km from Earth. for this part, The USA launched the OSIRIS-REx mission in 2016 To study Bennu and learn more about how asteroids work.

“We’ve never modeled the trajectory of an asteroid so accurately,” Farnocchia is finished.

(With information from EFE)

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