2023-07-29 12:02:36
Updated on 07/29/23 at 2:02 p.m.
You may not know it, but Brian May isn’t just Queen’s guitarist. The musician is also a doctor in astrophysics. An expertise that he used to design the very first atlas devoted to a asteroid. A book titled Bennu 3-D: Anatomy of an Asteroid which has just been released and which the musician co-wrote with University of Arizona researcher Dante Lauretta.
As its name suggests, this three-dimensional atlas is dedicated to Bennu, an asteroid located relatively close to Earth and which was the subject of the Osiris-Rex mission conducted in partnership with NASA and the University of Arizona. A mission launched in 2016 which has already made it possible to collect valuable data, but also samples which must return to Earth next September.
Waiting for the impact
According to NASA, this mission will allow scientists to go back 4.5 billion years, to a time when the Sun and the planets of our system were still forming.
Finally, less encouraging information, the American space agency estimates that Bennu is the asteroid which presents the most chances of hit the earth. An impact which, according to simulations, might occur towards the end of the 22nd century.
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