Asteroid Bennu
This is an artist's concept of the young Earth being bombarded by asteroids. Scientists think these impacts could have delivered significant amounts of organic matter and water to Earth. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Spherules found by Australian scientists in May are proof that an asteroid hit the Earth. Although chances of another asteroid hit are slim, nevertheless the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is not taking any chances and would start a study on asteroid Bennu.

Discovered in 1999, Bennu crosses the Earth’s orbit every six years and has gotten closer to the planet, having shifted 100 miles since then. In 2135, the asteroid will fly between the Earth and moon so close that gravity from the Earth could affect the asteroid’s orbit, says Dante Lauretta, professor of planetary science at Arizona University, reports the New York Post.

Although the chance of a hit is small, but significant at 1 in 2,500, according to NASA, if Bennu strikes Earth, experts estimate is would have the strength 200 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb, or equivalent to 3 billion tonnes of high explosives triggered. Professor Mark Bailey of Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland warns Bennu is within the boundary, in terms of size, for an object capable of causing global catastrophe, reports Sunday Times.

He adds it is similar to the danger show in “Armageddon,” a 1998 movie starring Bruce Willis, whose character was sent on a space mission to implant a nuclear weapon and destroy an asteroid which would collide with Earth.

In September, NASA will launch the Osiris-Rex probe mission to study Bennu. The mission will first orbit the sun for one year to build up speed as it slingshots back around Earth. It would use the planet’s gravity to align Earth’s orbit with Bennu. It would take place in August 2018.

Lauretta says the rendezvous would provide NASA an opportunity to get pieces of carbonaceous asteroid since Bennu is an ancient relic from the early solar system filled with organic molecules. Based on the measurement of Bennu’s density, scientists believe it may have void in its interior, making the asteroid a rubble pile, or a loosely bound collection of dust, rock and boulders, says Edward Beshore, deputy principal investigator for Osiris-Rex.

The probe would use the Yarkovsky effect, a newly discovered force to send asteroids careening around the solar system and potentially toward Earth.

VIDEO: OSIRIXX-Rex Tech – Surveying an Asteroid with Light

Source: NASA Goddard

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