Asteroid with force of 22 atomic bombs might hit earth in 2182, says NASA

Bennu, an ancient relic of our solar system, is believed to have been around for more than 4.5 years.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists have revealed that they are in the last stages of their mission to prevent a possible asteroid from colliding with the Earth in 159 years. The asteroid, Bennu, could hit the Earth on September 24, 2182, according to experts.

However, the event has a 1 in 2,700 possibility of hitting our planet, but experts don’t want to take a chance on the slightest possibility of the asteroid hitting the Earth. So much so that, seven years ago, NASA sent a spacecraft to Bennu to collect some samples in the hope of retrieving some data so that such a catastrophe can be prevented.

What is the Bennu asteroid?

Bennu was discovered back in 1999 and travels near the Earth around every six years. The rock is believed to be the size of New York’s Empire State Building and has the force of 22 atomic bombs.

During its Touch-and-Go (TAG) sample collection operation, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed on the surface of Bennu in 2020 and retrieved rocky material from a sample site, Nightingale.

Bennu, an ancient relic of our solar system, is believed to have been around for more than 4.5 years, according to scientists. Earlier, it used to be known as the 1999 RQ36. It was named Bennu in 2013, after a Class 3 student named Michael Puzio won a contest to name the asteroid.

What is NASA doing to avert Bennu colliding with the Earth?

“We are now in the final leg of this seven-year journey, and it feels very much like the last few miles of a marathon, with a confluence of emotions like pride and joy coexisting with a determined focus to complete the race well," Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Telegraph.

According to the outlet, the OSIRIS-Rex mission’s asteroid samples will land on Earth next week and will enter the atmosphere at approximately 3.42 pm British Summer Time (BST) on Sunday.

Once the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is 63,000 miles (1,01,388 kms approx.) from the Earth, a fridge-sized capsule with the samples will be launched back to Earth. It will then travel towards the planet at a speed of nearly 28,000 mph and reach temperatures as hot as lava.

Parachutes will be deployed in the Utah desert to slow down the capsule down to 11 mph, so it can land safely the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range southwest of Salt Lake City, according to Mirror.

In order to avoid contaminating the samples from Bennu, the recovery team will retrieve the capsule from the ground as soon as possible.

The mission’s findings might not only avert a disaster but may also reveal some information about the origin of life on Earth.

The mission is quite a reflection of the 1998 Bruce Willis-starrer “Armageddon”. In the film, Willis’s character stops and asteroid the size of Texas from hitting the Earth by landing on it and splitting it in half with a nuclear bomb.