The asteroid Bennu is a rubble asteroid that was visited by the Osiris-Rex space vehicle, which took the images used in this composite photo. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
In 2018, NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission reached Asteroid 101955 Bennu. Two years later, the spaceship grabbed a champion of its surface, which has been returned to Earth since then. Now, astronomers are knowing Bennu as never before – and a new study looks how it could destroy us.
Bennu is classified as an asteroid near the earth (Nea), whose orbit maintains it within 1.3 astronomical units from the sun. (An astronomical unit, or au, is the average distance of the land of 93 million miles [150 million kilometers]). The spatial rock was “tagged” by the Osiris-Rex mission in 2020, when the boat went down short to collect a sample of his regulation. That champion now helps scientists to determine some things about Bennu and his asteroid companions. So far, we have learned that it is a “pile of rubble” type asteroid rather than a solid body, and recently that brings many of the ingredients for life.
Potentially dangerous
But Bennu is more than a simple object near the earth. It is also classified as a potentially dangerous asteroid (PHA), which can arrive within 0.05 UA or not of the Earth, increasing the possibility that it can affect our planet. In particular, it has a possibility of 1 in 2,700 (which is only 0.037 percent) to hit the land in 2182.
Bennu is little more than ⅓ Mile, or 560 meters in diameter. And while we know about the devastating effects of a larger asteroid (just ask the dinosaurs) and the regional effects of a much smaller one (just visit the barringer meteorite crater in Arizona), we know less about what to expect item – let’s say, about 0, 2 to 0.6 miles (from 300 to 1,000 meters) in front – bang down.
A new study published on February 5 in Scientific progress Look what could happen. Because even if Bennu is unlikely that it affects us, the study of the author LAN Dai of the IBS center for climatic physics states that there are about 5,000 objects of similar size. That is to say, even if it is not Bennu, we may want to know what we find ourselves.
Related: These 5 impact craters highlight the wild history of the earth
What the damage is
“On average, the asteroids of Bennu size affect the earth about every 100 [thousand] At 200 thousand, “he says.” Since many impact structures have not been found or have disappeared due to geological processes, it is difficult to confirm the impacts of the asteroids of Bennu size on the history of the earth. “
Therefore, come on and his team turned to computer simulations. The results do not paint a rosy picture, even if humanity would be (probably) survive.
The worst scenario showed that Bennu would have injected about 400 million tons of dust in our atmosphere, which would cause a global cooling event of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). Furthermore, by the states that global rainfall would decrease by 15 percent – so the world would be colder and more dried – and ozone levels would decrease 32 percent, with the vegetable photosynthesis taking 20 % to 30 percent of nosetive after the impact. Therefore, this is a colder, dried, less protected by spatial radiation and with a possibility of famine.
But those effects are only temporary. In the end, the dust will settle (literally). And that dust could help us bounce.
“It is interesting to note that, instead of the rapid reduction and the slow recovery of two years of plants on the ground, the plankton in the ocean recovers within 6 months and even increases later,” he says, while the blooms of Diatomee are triggered everywhere The dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with an iron -rich dust rich in iron dust From the iron -rich dust from the dust rich in iron rich iron powder with dust rich in iron from dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with dust rich in iron with a dust rich in iron from the asteroid ends up in the ocean.
Time to divert
If this is unlikely – but not impossible – Bennu’s strike occur, we are more than 150 years old to prepare ourselves. And in fact, space agencies have worked on possible ways to deviate asteroids. “Scientists from the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA or other agencies have undertaken efforts in the detection and deflection of asteroids,” he says. “We hope that humans can be able to defend our planet from Bennu deviating his trajectory if he heads towards the earth.”
In 2022, NASA ran out a space vehicle in the tiny Asteroid Dimorphos as part of the Dart mission. The test has tightened the orbit of dwelling around his parent body, Didymos, reducing his orbital period of about 32 minutes. Although Dart has shown that it is possible to move an asteroid and that technology could certainly be reduced when Bennu arrives – and if it seems that it will represent a real danger.
