• Asteroid Bennu Full Rotation • • This series of images taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows asteroid Bennu in one full rotation from about 50 miles (80 km). The spacecraft’s PolyCam camera obtained the thirty-six 2.2-millisecond frames over a period of four hours and 18 minutes. •• Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/University Of Arizona | Astronomy Nation

Asteroid Bennu Holds the Building Blocks of Life (APOD: 2025 Feb 12) Video Credit: Data: NASA, SVS, U. Arizona, CSA, York U., MDA; Visualizer: Kel Elkins (lead, SVS); Text: Ogetay Kayali (Michigan Tech U.) https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250212.html Explanation: What can a space rock tell us about life on Earth? NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a careful approach to the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu in October of 2020 to collect surface samples. In September 2023, the robotic spaceship returned

“This is the kind of finding you hope you’re going to make on a mission.” – Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites and lead author on a new paper out today. New analysis of samples from the asteroid Bennu reveals that evaporating water left a briny broth where the elemental ingredients of life intermingled to create more complex structures like salts and minerals. Bennu’s parent asteroid, which formed around 4.5 billion years ago, was home to pockets of liquid water. This water evaporated and left beh

10K views · 5.9K reactions | Hello, asteroid Bennu! NASA's OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission flew over two billion miles through space to meet you. Here, the spacecraft's camera captures a full rotation of the asteroid from only about 50 miles away: https://go.nasa.gov/2rhr6a3 OSIRIS-REx will study Bennu for almost a year and eventually select a location to collect a sample to return to Earth. #WelcomeToBennu | NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Facebook