No, Asteroid Bennu Won't Destroy Earth

NASA's new asteroid-sampling mission will do a lot of interesting things, but helping prepare humanity for Earth's imminent destruction is not among them. There is indeed a chance that the 1,650-foot-wide (500 meters) asteroid Bennu — the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch next month — could hit Earth late in the 22nd century. But, mission officials stressed, that chance is slim, and the space rock is not nearly big enough to pose an existe