A large asteroid could smash into earth in 159 years, according to NASA.
Known as Bennu, the near Earth object has orbited Earth roughly every six years since 1999 when it was discovered, the New York Post reported.
It has sparked three close warnings in 1999, 2005, and 2011.
A third of a mile in width, Bennu is expected to devastate the area the size of Texas.
Bennu is given a 1 in 2,700 chance or .037 percent of impacting Earth on September 24, 2182, according to a paper from the OSIRIS-REx science team.
File/A long exposure shows light trail of a re-entry capsule, carrying samples collected from a distant asteroid after being released by Japanese space probe Hayabusa-2, entering the Earth’s atmosphere as seen from Coober Pedy in South Australia early on December 6, 2020. (MORGAN SETTE/AFP via Getty)
“On September 25, 2135, Bennu will make a close fly-by past Earth and has a miniscule chance of passing through a “gravitational keyhole” that would put the space rock on a collision course with the planet in 2182 — 159 years from now,” the New York Post reported.
The collision could release enough energy for 22 atomic bombs, according to Earth.com.
In 2020, OSIRIS-REx collected two pounds of rock and dirt samples from Bennu. The first asteroid sample is expected to crash land in Utah on Sunday, ABC News reported.
“This is pure untainted material revealing early solar system secrets. A longshot discovery would be finding biological molecules or even precursor molecules for life,” astrophysicist Hakeem Oluyesi told ABC News.
