The asteroid Bennu is puzzling scientists, with samples from the space rock showing weirder properties than they expected. These include extremely high nitrogen levels and improbably magnetic ...

"Asteroid Bennu may be a fragment of an ancient ocean world. That's still highly speculative. But it's the best lead I have right now to explain the origin of that material," Lauretta said.

How Bennu could hit the Earth Bennu, categorized as a Near-Earth Object (NEO), could pass through a "gravitational keyhole" in the year 2182, causing it to collide with Earth, said NASA.

An early analysis of a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu suggests that the space rock had an unexpectedly water-rich past — and it may have even splintered off from an ancient ocean world ...

To reach Bennu, which orbits in a plane tilted six degrees from Earth's, OSIRIS-REx looped around the sun and then made a velocity-boosting gravity-assist flyby of Earth on Sept. 22, 2017.

OSIRIS-REx later arrived at the asteroid in late December 2018 after surveying for a few years the spacecraft prepared to descend to Bennu's surface. After collecting samples in October 2020, the ...

Specifically, it has a 1-in-2,700 chance (that’s just 0.037 percent) of hitting Earth in 2182. Bennu is just over ⅓ mile, or 560 meters, in diameter.

Dec. 3, 2018: OSIRIS-REx arrives at asteroid Bennu. Dec. 31, 2019: OSIRIS-REx begins orbiting Bennu. Oct. 20, 2020: Sample collected from Bennu. April 7, 2021: Final flyover of Bennu.

Asteroid Bennu is much stranger than researchers previously thought. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. When the OSIRIS-REx ...

Scientists have taken their first glimpse of a sample collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu — and stumbled upon a good bit more than they expected. When they opened the canister ...

The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the Department of ...

Bennu poses no imminent danger to Earth, and NASA hasn't ever issued a collision warning for this asteroid, or any other. The asteroid has a "close approach" to Earth every six years, though space ...