101955 Bennu

3D Model

101955 Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group that was discovered by the LINEAR Project on September 11, 1999. It is a potential Earth impactor that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table with the third highest rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale, due to a 1 in 2700 chance of impacting Earth in the 22nd century. 101955 Bennu has been considered as the target of spacecraft missions due to the low Δv required to reach it from Earth orbit. The OSIRIS-REx mission of NASA’s New Frontiers Program was launched on September 8, 2016, and should reach 101955 Bennu in 2019, and return samples to Earth in 2023.[