Probably the most important factor in coming to Bennu as the asteroid of choice was the familiarity with the space rock.įor the average consumer and general media, Asteroid Bennu is known as the "armageddon" asteroid that could mean the end of civilization if it beats the 0.037 percent odds and actually collides with Earth. "Did these kinds of bodies deliver organic material and water, in the form of hydrated minerals like clay, to the surface of our planet that created the habitability and the environments that may have led to the origin of life?" Familiarity "We're really interested in bringing back a pristine sample of the early solar system," Osiris-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona said last month. The inside matters just as much as the outside, and Bennu fits the bill perfectly, according to NASA.īennu, believed to be carbon-rich due to its "very dark, black surface," has recorded "the earliest history of our solar system because its composition probably has remained unchanged since it formed some four billion years ago." What's more, Bennu could possibly contain natural resources such as water, organics and precious metals - precursors to the origin of life.
Not only does this theoretically allow Osiris-REx to match Bennu's rotation speed, but there will also be plenty of materials available to collect. Not only is it difficult for a spacecraft to match the rotation speed of a rapidly-rotating object, but even it does, the rotation speed might have caused the asteroid to lose material from its surface, thus leaving less for the spacecraft to recover.īennu, on the other hand, is rather large, measuring nearly 1,640 feet in diameter and rotates only once every 4.3 hours. In this case, Richey mentioned that asteroids less than 660 feet are especially difficult to obtain samples from due to their heightened rotation speed. Why? Because it plays a large part in the chances that any material will actually be obtainable from its surface. Size was one of the most important factors in determining which asteroid to choose for the mission. The samples are due here in 2023."Bennu's size, primitive and carbon-rich composition and orbit make it one of the most fascinating and accessible asteroids, and that is why it was ultimately chosen as the target asteroid for the Osiris-REx mission," Richey said. The spacecraft is headed back to Earth on a long, roundabout loop after collecting samples from the large, spinning rubble pile of an asteroid, considered one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our solar system. “So I think that overall, the situation has improved,” he told reporters.
While the odds of a strike have risen from 1-in-2,700 to 1-in-1,750 over the next century or two, scientists now have a much better idea of Bennu’s path thanks to NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft, according to Farnocchia. “We shouldn’t be worried about it too much,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist with NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who served as the study’s lead author. The bad news is that the space rock has a slightly greater chance of clobbering Earth than previously thought.īut don’t be alarmed: Scientists reported Wednesday that the odds are still quite low that Bennu will hit us in the next century. (AP) - The good news is that scientists have a better handle on asteroid Bennu’s whereabouts for the next 200 years.
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