Asteroid Bennu, officially designated as 101955 Bennu, is a near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid discovered in 1999. Bennu is categorized as a potentially hazardous object due to its size—approximately 500 meters in diameter—and its proximity to Earth. The asteroid is particularly interesting to scientists because it is an ancient relic from the early solar system, holding clues to the building blocks of life and the origins of planets. In 2016, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx mission to study Bennu up close, gather samples, and return them to Earth for detailed analysis. The spacecraft reached Bennu in 2018, performed a detailed survey of its surface, and collected samples in 2020. These samples are expected to provide significant insights into the composition of early solar system materials and the pathways through which they might lead to the formation of life. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is set to return to Earth with its precious cargo in 2023.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center team overcame technical challenges to access more of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample, exceeding collection goals and setting the stage for a…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, while not initially intended for stereoscopic imaging, benefited from the expertise of Brian May and Claudia Manzoni, who utilized the mission’s vast…
NASA’s asteroid Bennu sample indicates high-carbon content and water, suggesting potential building blocks for life on Earth. This discovery, part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, will…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx capsule has safely returned asteroid Bennu samples to Earth, landing in Utah after a controlled descent. The U.S. has, for the first time,…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is set to return the first U.S. asteroid sample to Earth in September after a successful mockup drop test in Utah’s West…
Ahead of the first asteroid sample collected by the U.S. arriving on Earth in September, media are invited on Monday, July 24, to meet mission…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is set to return samples from asteroid Bennu to Earth. These 4.5 billion-year-old samples will help scientists understand planet formation and life’s genesis,…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is cruising back to Earth with a sample it collected from the rocky surface of asteroid Bennu. When its sample capsule parachutes…
NASA’s first asteroid sample return spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, fired its thrusters for 30 seconds on September 21 and nudged its trajectory toward Earth. The resulting course…
Recently, scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission discovered that surface regeneration occurs on asteroids far more quickly than on Earth. By analyzing high-resolution images of rock…
Scientists have learned something astonishing after analyzing data gathered when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample from asteroid Bennu in October 2020. The spacecraft would…
Asteroid Bennu’s surface consists of low-cohesion rubble according to data gathered during the sampling of the asteroid by the OSIRIS-REx mission. This is the finding…
Asteroid Bennu’s boulder-covered surface gives it protection against small meteoroid impacts, according to observations of craters by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith…
Bennu and Ryugu are two rubble-pile asteroids that were recently photographed by unmanned spacecrafts. Both asteroids have a distinctive diamond shape, the formation of which…
Using data from NASA OSIRIS-REx mission, a University of Arizona-led team of scientists concluded that asteroids with highly porous rocks, such as Bennu, should lack…
Like Hitting a Bullseye With Your Eyes Closed Two statisticians put into perspective the chances of asteroid Bennu striking Earth in the next 300 years….
It’s hard to imagine what the surface of asteroid Bennu might look like – its shortest distance from Earth is still 250,000 miles (402,000 kilometers)…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is 328,000 miles, or 528,000 kilometers, away from the asteroid Bennu, having fired its engines on May 10 to initiate a return…