NASA say there is a 'small chance' of a 'hazardous' asteroid hitting the earth.
The asteroid known as Bennu will travel within half the distance of the Earth to the Moon in the year 2135 but the probability of an impact with our planet in the coming centuries is very slight, scientists have said.
A NASA spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, spent two years close to Bennu to observe the size, shape, mass and composition of the asteroid which is around 1,650 feet wide.
The spacecraft also collected a sample from the surface of the asteroid that will help researchers figure out the future trajectory of Bennu.
The dust and rocks collected by the robotic arm of OSIRIS-REx are expected to come back to earth on September 24, 2023.
Bennu was found in 1999 and is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid.
Scientists have reported the odds are still quite low that Bennu will reach us in the next century.
"We shouldn't be worried about it too much," said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist with NASA's Centre for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who served as the study's lead author.
While the odds of a strike have risen from 1-in-2,700 to 1-in-1,750 over the next century or two, scientists now have a much better idea of Bennu's path thanks to NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft, according to Farnocchia.
"So I think that overall, the situation has improved," he told reporters.
The spacecraft is headed back to Earth on a long, roundabout loop after collecting samples from the large, spinning rubble pile of an asteroid, considered one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our solar system.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in 2018, telescopes provided solid insight into the asteroid, which is about one-third of a mile in diameter.
The spacecraft collected enough data over 2-1/2 years to help scientists better predict the asteroid's orbital path well into the future.
Their findings - published in the journal Icarus - should also help in charting the course of other asteroids and give Earth a better fighting chance if and when another hazardous space rock heads our way.
Before Osiris-Rex arrived on the scene, scientists put the odds of Bennu hitting Earth through the year 2200 at 1-in-2,700.
Now it's 1-in-1,750 through the year 2300.
The single most menacing day is September 24, 2182.
