earlier this year and found that the particles both spread out around Bennu’s orbit and follow a similar elliptical path around the Sun.To explain what was happening, scientists considered that the Sun also bakes Bennu’s rocky surface much like it does a comet. The rocks there experience the full force of that heat for about two hours, then cool down as Bennu completes its rotation and faces the cold vacuum of space, says Melikyan.
This large range of temperatures is believed to cause stresses and fractures that break Bennu’s rocks with enough force to eject some of them off the surface. In addition, scientists speculate that the very small grains of meteorites that hit the asteroid’s surface on a regular basis and at high speeds also send many of these fractured pieces aloft.
“The chance that these particles will brush up against Earth’s atmosphere is quite high [in the] next century when Bennu’s orbit is predicted to be closer to Earth,” Melikyan says. His team modeled Bennu’s orbit to a high degree of accuracy for the years between 1788 and 2135. The simulation shows that the first particle will brush against Earth’s atmosphere in the year 2101.
The authors of the study note that even the 2182 shower would be rather underwhelming, says Andrew Rivkin, a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory who was not involved with the study. “However, the particles would be rather large compared to typical meteors, so they would probably produce impressive fireballs if they were observed,” Rivkin says.
The best vantage point for the “2182 Melikyan Storm” will be from the southern region of South Africa, where a person might be able to see up to 140 meteors over a one-hour period, says Melikyan.
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