OSIRIS-REx Reveals Secrets of Bennu — The Doomed Asteroid

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched from Earth on September 8, 2016, headed for the asteroid Bennu. If all goes according to plan, the mission will return a sample of that body to Earth. The first close-up photos of the asteroid have now been released, showing some surprises that could affect the future of the mission, as well as the asteroid itself.

On March 19, researchers released a series of new papers on findings from Bennu, exploring a wealth of new information about this distant body. Some of these findings reveal that bringing a sample of the asteroid to Earth could be more difficult than planned. Still, mission planners feel they will be able to complete their mission.

“Despite these newly found challenges, our team is confident that we will meet the science objectives. The OSIRIS-REx team designed the mission with flexibility and capabilities to deal with the unknown, and we are prepared to answer the challenges Bennu has given us,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator and professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Bennu could hold a wealth of information for researchers concerning the birth and formation of the Solar System. New findings from the OSIRIS-REx satellite reveal new answers — and questions — about this odd object. Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

The intrepid spacecraft arrived at its destination on December 3, 2018, and has, so far, completed a few dozen orbits of Bennu, as it orbits at a distance of around 1.6 kilometers (one mile) from the…