Asteroid Bennu has been in Earth's vicinity for 1.75 million years: New study

Marking another revelation about asteroid Bennu, researchers have now said that the celestial body has been closer to Earth for a much longer time than previously estimated. In the recent study, published in journal Nature, scientists asserted that the asteroid has been in an orbit that brings it close to the Earth for 1.75 million years.  The asteroid has been in headlines over the past weeks owing to NASA’s Robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex's mission to collect asteroid dust. 

Credits: NASA

Besides the structure and composition of Bennu, images sent by the OSISRIS –Rex camera setup, have laid open a sea of information. This study, also based upon the sent images, analyses the crators of the asteroid to estimate how long it has been near planet earth. As of now, Bennu is about 200 million miles away from Earth.

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Bennu broke off from Asteroid Belt

Bennu was once part of a much larger parent body in the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter, CNN reported quoting scientists. However, after the parent asteroid collided, Bennu broke off, shifting to an orbit closer to Earth.

To further probe into it, researchers analyzed images of Bennu that show varied crators across the asteroid's surface. They then studied, the depth of the crators to understand when the depressions were formed and where the impacts that caused craters occurred. Using the size and age of craters, they created a timeline.

Although the scientists couldn’t agree on the exact time when the asteroid was near the earth, they discovered that it arrived in its present orbit nearly 1.75 million years ago.

"An asteroid's history is determined in large part by its strength against collisions with other objects. Our derived exposure age of Bennu's boulders is substantially shorter than the expected total lifetime of this asteroid after the catastrophic disruption of its parent. As the source region of (near-Earth asteroids) is the main asteroid belt, Bennu has spent most of its life in a collisional environment different than the one at its current orbit,” the authors wrote in the study.

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Main image credits: NASA