Asteroid Bennu may collide with Earth in 2182: what will happen to the planet
Kyiv • UNN
Scientists have modeled the consequences of a possible impact of the asteroid Bennu on Earth on September 24, 2182. The collision could cause a global winter with a 4°C drop in temperature and food insecurity.
What would happen if the Bennu space rock fell to Earth in 2182: researchers modeled the potential impact of a space asteroid the size of a hill. They also determined the date when the space body could potentially collide with the Earth.
Transmits to UNN with a link to ScienceAlert.
A new study has modeled the consequences of a collision between the asteroid Bennu and the Earth, an event that is unlikely but not completely ruled out. Scientists believe that September 24, 2182 may be the date when there is a real threat of an asteroid collision with the Earth.
For reference
Over the years, asteroids have hit the Earth many times. Space is teeming with rocks, and many of them are carelessly hurtling along trajectories that could lead them to a violent collision with our planet.
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According to NASA, the celestial object, which has been named Bennu, has a 1 in 2,700 chance of colliding with our planet on September 24, 2182. With a diameter of about 500 meters and a mass of 74 million tons, its collision will cause a number of catastrophic consequences.
A particular threat is the consequences after a possible collision
To understand the effects of future impacts, Dai and Timmerman used the Aleph supercomputer at the university's IBS Center for Climate Physics to model a 500-meter asteroid impact with Earth, including simulations of terrestrial and marine ecosystems that had not been considered in previous simulations.
Scientists have come to a conclusion:
It is not that the Earth will be devastated by the explosion, but what will happen after it.
Scientists have modeled the fall
A team of scientists has developed climate models to understand the consequences of a possible collision. Experts explain: in fact, Bennu is much smaller than the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But its collision could cause a global winter that would affect food production and the ecological balance.
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The Bennu collision will release millions of tons of dust and aerosols into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and lowering the global average temperature by up to 4°C.
Such an impact would release 100 to 400 million metric tons of dust into the planet's atmosphere, disrupting the chemical composition of the atmosphere.This would interfere with photosynthesis, and hit the climate like a wrecking ball.
"This is likely to lead to serious disruptions in global food security.
But not everything is so hopeless
Indeed, terrestrial plants are sensitive to such changes and take some time to recover. But algae living in ponds not only recovered faster, recovering within a few months.
The experiment confirmed:
Algae have grown to volumes that they would not reach under current normal climate conditions.
Explanation on the example of the study
The algae's behavior, the researchers say, is due to the iron content of the asteroid's dust and dust from material ejected from Earth during the impact, a nutrient that helped the simulated algae thrive.
This was especially true for marine diatoms, which feed on zooplankton, indicating a possible way to mitigate food security.
It is impossible to say for sure how often our planet has been hit by large asteroids in its history. Craters are eroded and covered by erosion processes. Some large rocks explode in midair, leaving only debris that is difficult to identify in the geologic record unless you look for it.
However, scientists believe that humanity as a whole is likely to survive the encounter with the Benn asteroid.
Addendum
NASA and other space agencies have developed strategies to reduce the risk of collision. The OSIRIS-REx mission allowed for an in-depth study of the asteroid and samples of its composition, which facilitates the planning of future deflection missions. An example of this is the DART mission, which in 2022 managed to change the asteroid's trajectory by colliding with the probe. This type of technology could be used in the future to change Bennu's orbit if it is determined that its course poses a real danger to Earth.
