Sunday, October 1 2023 | 08:08 WIB
Surya Lesmana / LES
Asteroid Bennu.
Houston, Beritasatu.com – NASA has asked for help from astronomers at the Vatican to work together to analyze one of the asteroids predicted to be the most threatening to planet Earth. The asteroid is called Bennu, which could possibly hit Earth in the future.
NASA predicts that Asteroid Bennu could hit Earth at the end of the 22nd century. Although this is more than 150 years in the future, the US space agency is now watching the asteroid’s movements closely to better understand its orbit and predict how it will act in the coming decades.
Research on the Asteroid Bennu began in 2016, when NASA’s Osiris-Rex space probe mission was launched to collect samples of the asteroid in space. It wasn’t until 2020 that the asteroid’s surface was reached, and through a robotic arm that allowed NASA to take dust and rock samples from the asteroid.
It turns out that in its research on Asteroid Bennu samples, NASA involved the Vatican. Where the asteroid samples are currently being analyzed at the astronomical observatory, a Vatican scientific research center.
Bob Macke, a Vatican Jesuit whose career in astronomy is extensive, is known to have done more research on meteorites and is now in charge of analyzing samples from this mission.
Apart from that, he has also created a tool capable of studying the porosity and types of rocks taken from Bennu.
The name of the tool is a pycnometer, which is a measuring instrument used to determine the density or specific gravity of a liquid at a certain temperature.
2023-10-01 01:08:00
#Studying #Asteroids #Threaten #Earth #NASA #Asks #Vatican
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