See every square foot of asteroid Bennu, Earth's little frenemy

Engadget ^ | 04/07/2020 | Steve Dent

[BenLurkin]

While it has a face only an astrogeologist could love, that rubble could be as old as the solar system itself. Bennu is also number two on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard scale, meaning there’s a (slight) chance it could impact Earth very violently in around 150 years. And now, Bennu has the distinction of being the subject of the highest resolution mosaic ever made of any planetary body.

The image was collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft between March 7th and April 19th, 2019. At the time, it was about 2 to 3 miles from the surface of the 1,600 foot wide asteroid, with both bodies located several hundred million miles from Earth. To give an idea of the detail, each pixel in the original 50,669 x 25,350 image represents about 2 inches, so you can make out objects as small as about 10 inches across.

We already know lots of other things about Bennu, including the fact that it’s spewing particles into space — behavior that’s common for a comet, but rare for an asteroid.

OSIRIS-REx’s mission is far from over, and it’s actually scheduled to land on the asteroid in August 2020. To that end, the team used the image to choose the landing site (codenamed Nightingale) in a large crater on the northern section of the asteroid.

...REx will slowly approach Bennu and gently kiss it, firing a burst of nitrogen to blow away particles that will be collected in the sampler head of its robotic arm. If all goes well, the spacecraft will return to Earth with the sample on September 24th, 2023. Hopefully, that will be the closest the Bennu ever comes to Earth.

[TChad]

Ha! I had to look it up. I was referring to real unobtainium, not fictional Pandoran unobtainium. Or something like that.

By the way, as long as I am chatting with you, is Rurudyne a play on Yoyodyne?

[GingisK]

Whoa! I just saw a alien face on Bennu! Its there, just look at it... ;-D

[upchuck]

Neat pic. Thanks to NASA.

[CJ Wolf]

looks like a chunk of something.

[minnesota_bound]

#10 this is how the Earth started out. A collection of rocks that attracted more and more with the resulting pressure molding it all into a sphere.

[SunkenCiv]

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• NASA warns of an asteroid approaching Earth at 63,000 mph with a chance of impact [or not] [2019]
• NASA Prepares to Snatch Samples of 'Apocalypse Asteroid' Bennu [2019]
• No, You Won't See an 'Apocalypse Asteroid' in the Sky on Valentine's Day [2019]
• OSIRIS-REx Captures Sharper Images of Asteroid Bennu [2019]
• Watch NASA's OSIRIS-REx Rendezvous With an Asteroid: The spacecraft arrives at the tiniest [tr] [2018]
• Live coverage of spacecraft arrival at asteroid December 3 [2018]
• NASA Spacecraft Begins Final Approach to Big Asteroid Bennu [2018]
• Asteroid Bennu: Target of Sample Return Mission [2018]
• NASA asteroid probe may find clues to origins of life on Earth (Bennu, time capsule of our origins) [2016]
• NASA plans to launch study of asteroid that could destroy Earth (Bennu in 2135 scenario) [2016]

[Rurudyne]

Yes.