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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 ...
Bennu’s parent asteroid likely broke apart 1 to 2 billion years ago, and some of the fragments came together to form the rubble pile we know as Bennu.
Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid formed as part of a parent body approximately 4.5 billion years ago, has long intrigued researchers due to its potential to harbor traces of water and organic molecules.
Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission recently delivered remarkable findings about asteroid 101955 Bennu after the mission returned its samples to Earth in 2023.
In 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu and scientists got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have ...
The rocky object called Bennu is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, currently making its closest approach to Earth every six years at about 186,000 miles (299,000 km) away. So what would happen ...
By traveling to Bennu, NASA researchers reasoned, a probe could gather pristine material. The OSIRIS-REx probe arrived at the 1,850-foot-wide asteroid in 2020, scooped up rock and dirt, and then ...
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned samples from asteroid Bennu, which showed discoveries about life and the early solar system. These findings can now provide information into the potential ...
Compared to Bennu, which is about 0.3 miles (0.5 km) wide, the dinosaur-killing asteroid was massive. Medium-sized asteroids like Bennu are more common in the solar system.
First discovered in 1999, Bennu, the near-Earth asteroid, could possibly drift into the planet's orbit and could hit the planet by September 2182, according to the OSIRIS-REx science team.
The rocky object called Bennu is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, currently making its closest approach to Earth every six years at about 186,000 miles away. It might come even closer in the ...