NASA has recalculated the possibility of the asteroid Pennu hitting Earth

This calculation indicates a slightly higher risk compared to the previous estimate of 1 in 2,700, now and between 2200). “I don’t care about the pen more than before. The probability of impact is still very small,” the expert stressed.

However, Pennu’s path is known with sufficient accuracy to establish that the chances of a collision for the next century will be zero. However, that celestial body is approaching the orbit of our planet and in 2135 it will be approaching a distance equal to half the path between the Earth and the Moon. The most worrying day is September 24, 2182, but there is only a 0.037% probability of impact.

Pennu is about half a kilometer wide. The collision of such an object would not be strong enough to cause a general catastrophe on the planet, but it would cause great catastrophe. “As a general rule, you can say that the size of an abyss is 10 to 20 times the size of an object,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. “An object with a size of half a kilometer will form a pit of at least 5, and a diameter of 10 km. But the affected area […] It will be 100 times larger than the size of the abyss, ”he pointed out.