Bennu

Quite why this asteroid and the latest attempts to recover dust from its surface are given so little media time is a mystery, at least to me. The Times newspaper does however have an excellent report today but only well inside the newspaper -  sadly, not front page material. There is however, also a report on the scientific pages of the BBC websute.

The bad news is that Bennu sweeps so closely to the earth that when next it comes in this direction, there is a chance admittedly only c. 1 in 1,750, of our colliding. The asteroid is roughly the height of New York's  Empire State  building, so a collision could be disastrous for planet Earth, as was the case when last time there was such a strike. Scientists  report  probably that at that time, dinasaurs were wiped out and the Earth shrouded in dust for years.

The good news however is that American scientists hope that by  this Sunday ie tomorrow in England, a time capsule will after travelling  for seven years back from Bennu's surface, will touch down in the Utah desert with a sample of the asteroid's surface rock.  Almost typically though, rain is forecast for the touchdown time.

Interestingly, the belief is that Bennu not only predates the Earth by millions of years but probably also our Solar System. Scientists hope that extremely careful anaysis of the sample of Bennu's surface will  assist them in answering questions about Earth, such as how we have oceans and indeed life.

The hope is that the spacecraft, after dropping its time capsule onto the Utah desert tomorrow, will amazingly at least to me, fly on to investgate another astroid, Apophis, in 2029.

The British involvement with  the project so far, has included that from the rock band Queen. Their lead gutarist Brian May is also an astrophysicist and assisted the NASA computers with 3D models of the Bennu surface.