101955 Bennu, an asteroid identified as a "potential Earth impactor" with a 1 in 2,700 chance of hitting the Earth, will be visited by a "vacuum cleaner" spacecraft in 2018.

Experts believe this potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) with a diameter of 490 meters will likely smash into the Earth in the 22nd century with a force equivalent to 1,450 megatons of TNT. Bennu will gouge out a five kilometer-wide impact crater and alter the Earth for the worse.

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But before Bennu's close encounter with the planet, it will be visited by an unmanned spacecraft of the OSIRIS-REx Mission. The spacecraft will be launched on Sept. 8 and will rendezvous with Bennu in August 2018. OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer.

The mission will study asteroid 101955 Bennu and in 2023 to return to Earth a sample for detailed analysis. Material returned should enable scientists to learn more about the time before the formation and evolution of the Solar System the initial stages of planet formation and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will use a small vacuum-like device capable of hovering above the asteroid. The device will suck-up from 60 to 400 grams of gravel and soil to bring back to Earth. The mission is headed by NASA and the University of Arizona.

"We believe Bennu is a time capsule from the very beginnings of our solar system," said Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona's lunar and planetary laboratory and the principal investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission.

"So the sample can potentially hold answers to the most fundamental questions human beings ask, like 'Where do we come from?'"

The sample can help scientists understand how life on Earth began. It will also help them determine if life ever existed or exists on Mars or Europa, a Jovian moon scientists believe might have life because of the likelihood of lakes of liquid water beneath its frozen surface.

Tags101955 Bennu, OSIRIS-REx Mission, potentially hazardous asteroid, NASA