101955 Bennu

101955 Bennu (provisional designation ) is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group discovered by the LINEAR Project on 11 September 1999.

Bennu has a 1 in 2,700 chance of hitting Earth between the year 2175 and 2199.

It is named after the Bennu, the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth.

Bennu has an average diameter of .

Bennu was the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission which returned samples to Earth in 2023 for further study.

Bennu is the second-highest on the cumulative rating on the Palermo technical impact hazard scale.

It is believed that Bennu broke off from another asteroid in the asteroid belt, but the gravitational pull of Saturn dislodged it into the range of Earth.

Bennu orbits the Sun every 1.2 years. It comes within 0.002 astronomical units of the earth every 6 years.

Some believe that if Bennu enters a specific hole between the earth and the moon its orbit could change in a way that would make it likely to hit Earth.

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Category:Asteroids