Bennu

Watch OSIRIS-REx's Complex Orbital Path Around Bennu in This Cool Animation

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft conducted a two-year reconnaissance and sample collection at the asteroid Bennu, providing crucial data about the 500-meter-wide…

8 months ago

OSIRIS-REx Would Have Sunk Deep into Asteroid Bennu if it Tried to Land

A pair of studies published in Science and Science Advances have helped identify that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource…

8 months ago

Asteroid Ryugu Might Actually Be a Dead Comet

In 2014, the Japanese Space Agency JAXA launched the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to visit asteroid Ryugu. It arrived at the…

12 months ago

OSIRIS-Rex got to Know Bennu Really Well. Apparently, There’s now a 1-in-1,750 Chance That it’ll hit Earth by 2300

Asteroid Bennu is one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our Solar System. Luckily, the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral…

2 years ago

OSIRIS-REx Did One Last Close Flyby of Asteroid Bennu. It’s Almost Time to Come Home

After more than two years in orbit around asteroid Bennu, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is ready to come home. It's bringing…

2 years ago

OSIRIS-REx is Heading for Home in May

The OSIRIS-REx team decided to delay the spacecraft’s departure from asteroid Bennu for two months. The departure window opens in…

2 years ago

Asteroid Bennu has little pieces of Vesta on it

The asteroid belt is a chaotic place.  Things smash into each other, get thrown into completely different orbital planes, and…

2 years ago

Bennu is Constantly Getting Sandblasted by Tiny Meteoroids

As soon as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu in December 2018, there was a big surprise. Scientists expected…

3 years ago

Asteroid Bennu is Getting Some Official Names for its Surface Features

Late last summer, NASA and the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (a.k.a WGPSN) approved the naming…

3 years ago

Even Though it Was Observing an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx Accidentally Spotted a Black Hole

While the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting asteroid Bennu, one of the instruments on board happened to catch a glimpse of…

3 years ago