![]() Those samples won’t be in NASA’s hands until 2023 (OSIRIS-REx is still making the journey home), but NASA has already used what it’s learned from the probe to update its predictions about the Bennu asteroid. The craft spent two years studying Bennu up close, recording data from its orbit and even landing on the asteroid to collect rock samples - a first for NASA. The OSIRIS-REx mission: To find out as much about the Bennu asteroid as possible, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in 2016. “So an object Bennu’s size impacting on the Eastern Seaboard states would pretty much devastate things up and down the coast.” “But the area of devastation is going to be much, much broader than that, as much as 100 times the size of the crater,” he continued. “ half-kilometer-sized object is going to create a crater that’s at least five kilometers in diameter, and it can be as much as 10 kilometers in diameter,” PDCO Director Lindley Johnson told the New York Times. “An object Bennu’s size … would pretty much devastate things up and down the coast.” Lindley Johnsonīennu is about one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide, and if it were to impact Earth, it could cause serious destruction. It’s currently almost 200 million miles away from us, but it’s expected to get within 125,000 miles in 2135 - that’s about half the distance between Earth and the moon. The Bennu asteroid : NASA discovered the Bennu asteroid in 1999. ![]() Right now, the PDCO is keeping a close eye on two particularly threatening space rocks, one of them being Bennu. If a large asteroid were to slam into Earth’s surface, though, the result could be devastating, so NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016 to detect and monitor any potentially dangerous asteroids and create a plan to prevent impacts, if possible.īennu is expected to get within 125,000 miles of Earth - about half the distance to the moon. The background: Our solar system contains more than a million asteroids, and most are tiny and highly unlikely to come anywhere near Earth. The fifth one that occurred between May 23 and 25 was larger than NASA had predicted and caused an impact on the telescope's mirrors.NASA has just updated its predictions about the possibility of the Bennu asteroid slamming into Earth, even going so far as to pinpoint the exact date an impact is most probable: September 24, 2182. Lee Feinberg, the Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA, said that the space agency had observed four smaller but measurable micrometeoroid hits since the launch of the space telescope. Webb Space Telescope's micrometeoroid hits Additionally, the space telescope's design allows the position of its mirrors to be adjusted to cancel out the distortion an impact may create. To gain information on how to fortify the spacecraft against micrometeoroids, engineers used a mix of simulations as well as actual test impacts on mirror samples. "We designed and built Webb with performance margin – optical, thermal, electrical, mechanical – to ensure it can perform its ambitious science mission even after many years in space," said Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the update. From bearing cosmic rays originating from the distant depths of the galaxy to withstanding the impact of ultraviolet light and charged particles from the Sun, NASA's engineers have prepared the space telescope to remain strong in all scenarios. Built to withstand hits and much moreĮngineers at NASA were well aware of the harsh environment at the L2 orbit that the JWST would occupy. Even though their size might be small, micrometeoroids travel at extreme velocities and are one of the greatest factors space agencies take into account when building spacecraft, and the JWST was no exception. ![]() Outer space, however, does not have any atmosphere, and spacecraft are at high risk from these particles.
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