Asteroid Bennu sample shows more signs of a watery past

Astronomy Magazine ^ | July 3, 2024 | Last updated on July 24, 2024 | Theo Nicitopoulos

[SunkenCiv]

Bennu is a roughly 0.3-mile-wide (500 meters) asteroid that orbits in near-Earth space. Scientists suspect it's a chunk of a larger asteroid that broke off due to a collision farther out. Telescope observations and data collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft showed that Bennu has minerals that have been altered by water. Hence, scientists suspect the asteroid's parent body accreted ice that subsequently melted after it formed around 4.5 billion years ago...

The team found various varieties of the aqueously altered minerals, including serpentine, smectite, carbonates, magnetite, sulfides, and phosphates. The minerals are present as individual particles and as crusts coating other materials.

Cosmochemist Rhian Jones of the University of Manchester, who is a member of the Sample Analysis Team, suspects Bennu's parent body became a "muddy ball" over time, when the ices melted.

The study team also found evidence of fluid flow. In particular, some of the phyllosilicates had filled tiny fractures that look like veins in the rocks. Images taken by OSIRIS-REx also show meter-long-veins in boulders, also thought to be minerals that precipitated once water evaporated.

The study team also found magnesium-sodium phosphate. Lauretta says this type of phosphate is intriguing because it only forms when water has become saturated with carbonates, suggesting that pools of water persisted on Bennu's parent body for an extended time.

[SunkenCiv]

The rest of the Bennu keyword, sorted:

• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Back from Bennu [09/29/2023]
• NASA's OSIRIS-REx Capsule Secured in Utah Clean Room [09/24/2023]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Tagging Bennu [09/21/2023]
• NASA predicts large asteroid could smash into Earth in 159 years [09/20/2023]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - 3D Bennu [03/11/2023]
• How NASA's Audacious Mission To Sample An Asteroid Almost Ended In Bizarre Disaster [07/10/2022]
• Surprise -- Again! NASA Spacecraft Reveals Asteroid Bennu Is Not What It Seemed [07/08/2022]
• This Giant, Hazardous Asteroid Almost Certainly Won't Hit Us, Probably, NASA Says [Bennu] [08/12/2021]
• NASA Refines Threat Posed by Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Bennu The 1,640-foot-wide object could collide with Earth in 161 years, but the odds remain exceptionally low. [08/11/2021]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Tagging Bennu: The Movie [11/03/2020]
• NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collects significant amount of asteroid [10/24/2020]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Tagging Bennu [10/22/2020]
• Here It Is: The Spectacular Footage of NASA Touching Down on an Asteroid [10/22/2020]
• NASA mission successfully touched down on asteroid Bennu [10/20/2020]
• WATCH: OSIRIS-REx Sample Collection Activities [10/20/2020]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Descending Toward Asteroid Bennu [10/12/2020]
• Asteroid Bennu Caries Organic Materials Consistent With Ingredients For Life [10/09/2020]
• OSIRIS-REx readies for sample collection, observes strange activity at asteroid Bennu [10/01/2020]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Gravel Ejected from Asteroid Bennu [09/16/2020]
• NASA spacecraft swoops down low over asteroid Bennu to eye sampling site [06/09/2020]
• See every square foot of asteroid Bennu, Earth's little frenemy [04/07/2020]
• NASA warns of an asteroid approaching Earth at 63,000 mph with a chance of impact [or not] [12/27/2019]
• Eruptions on Asteroid Bennu Hint at Causes of Space Rock Explosions [12/05/2019]
• NASA Prepares to Snatch Samples of 'Apocalypse Asteroid' Bennu [08/14/2019]
• Asteroid Bennu keeps spinning faster and scientists aren't sure why [03/14/2019]
• No, You Won't See an 'Apocalypse Asteroid' in the Sky on Valentine's Day [02/11/2019]
• OSIRIS-REx Captures Sharper Images of Asteroid Bennu [01/31/2019]
• Watch NASA's OSIRIS-REx Rendezvous With an Asteroid: The spacecraft arrives at the tiniest [tr] [12/03/2018]
• Live coverage of spacecraft arrival at asteroid December 3 [12/02/2018]
• NASA Spacecraft Begins Final Approach to Big Asteroid Bennu [08/21/2018]
• NASA Spacecraft Refines Course Toward Big Asteroid Bennu [07/07/2018]
• Asteroid Bennu: Target of Sample Return Mission [03/13/2018]
• OSIRIS-REx Blasts off on 7 Year Sampling Trek to Asteroid Bennu and Back [09/10/2016]
• NASA asteroid probe may find clues to origins of life on Earth (Bennu, time capsule of our origins) [09/08/2016]
• NASA plans to launch study of asteroid that could destroy Earth (Bennu in 2135 scenario) [07/31/2016]

[SunkenCiv]

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---

[Buttons12]

Watery Tiamat bookmark!

I forget who came up with it...Sitchin maybe? but the story goes that a planet once situated between Mars and Jupiter, was destroyed by some cataclysm and thus we have the asteroid belt there.

[SunkenCiv]

Sitchin was a delusional con man.

The idea that a planet between Mars and Jupiter blew up is fairly old. The discovery of Ceres, which is a nice spheroid and largest of the main belt asteroids, used to be regarded as a planet here and there, but the discover of the other three large main belt asteroids put the kibosh on the idea. Cere’s mass exceeds the combined mass of the rest of the main belt asteroids, which is slightly in favor of a failure of Ceres to finish gathering up the rest of the debris and clearing out its orbital path.

Ceres’ mass is only 27% that of the Earth’s Moon, which itself is only 1% the mass of the Earth.

Here’s the AI summary answer for the question I just asked in the Brave location box:

Some quotes and statements from the search results suggest alternative theories:

Johann Daniel Titius and Johann E. Bode proposed the Titius-Bode law, which predicted the existence of a hypothetical fifth planet between Mars and Jupiter. However, this did not imply that the asteroid belt was a former planet.

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, and initially believed it might be a planet. However, subsequent discoveries of other asteroids and the realization that Ceres was much smaller than expected led to its reclassification as an asteroid.

Some scientists, such as Ivan I. Putilin and Tom Van Flandern, have proposed theories about the asteroid belt’s origin, including the idea that it might have been formed from the remains of a destroyed planet. However, these theories are not widely accepted, and most astronomers today believe that the asteroid belt formed through accretion of small bodies in the early solar system, rather than being the remnant of a former planet.

[Buttons12]

I agree. We’re not going to know until we start drilling out there, until then it’s fantasy. And Titius-Bode breaks down somewhere beyond Saturn. If only it were that easy!

[SunkenCiv]

Bode’s Law is more of a mnemonic that a law, not least because of the actual gap between Mars and Jupiter. This probably stems from the fact it doesn’t take into acc’t the relative masses of the planets (and the non-planet that it predicts and is ‘missing’).

https://www.tau.ac.il/~morris/03411203/chapter4/Bode‘s%20Law.htm