NASA reveals new estimates of the risk of the asteroid “Pennu” colliding with Earth

However, the probability of a collision with our planet in the coming centuries is very small, according to the body’s path analysis.

The good news is that scientists will be able to better manage Penn’s place over the next 200 years. The bad news is that space rocks are slightly more likely to hit Earth than previously thought, according to the study.

“We should not worry too much about it,” said David Fornocia, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

As the odds of a collision rise from 1 in 2700 to 1 in 1750 over the next century or two, scientists now thank NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft for Pennu’s trajectory.

“So I think the situation has generally improved,” Vernokia, a senior author of the new study, told reporters.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth in 2023 with models of the asteroid Pennu.

Before reaching the Osiris-Rex Penn in 2018, telescopes provided insight into the asteroid, which is estimated to be about a mile (half a kilometer) in diameter.

The spacecraft has collected enough data in two and a half years to help scientists better predict the orbit of the asteroid in the future.

Their findings, published in Icarus magazine, are expected to help list the trajectories of other asteroids.

Before reaching the asteroid Osiris-Rex, scientists estimated the chances of Penn hitting Earth in 2200 at 1 in 2700 (0.037%).

Now the probability of a collision is estimated to be 1 from 1750 to 2300, the most threatening day being September 24, 2182.

In 2135, when it passes halfway from the moon, Penn will meet Earth closer.

Earth’s gravity could change the path of the future asteroid and put it in conflict with our planet in the twenty-second century. Based on the observations of Osiris-Rex is now less.

NASA’s planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson said that if the pen collided with Earth, it would not kill life like dinosaurs, but would form an abyss approximately 10 to 20 times the size of an asteroid. And the area of ​​destruction is very large: up to 100 times the size of the pit.

Johnson added that the discovery of pre-threatened asteroids increases the chances and options for pushing them out of our way: “One hundred years later, who knows what technology will look like.”

In November, NASA plans to launch a collision with an asteroid and track it down. The test target will be a small moon on a large space rock.

Dr. David Clements, of Imperial College London, told The Sun, a British newspaper:

He explained that the strike would produce a fireball 275 times brighter than the sun.