Bennu – Fusion Nepal

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has found water on the asteroid Bennu, after finishing its two-year trip to the formation.

Sitting 12 miles (19 kilometres) from the surface, the probe has discovered water hidden inside the asteroid’s clay minerals, thanks to data obtained from the probe’s spectrometers.

During its two-year, 1.4 million-mile (2.2 million-kilometre) trip to the asteroid, instruments aboard OSIRIS-REx — that’s the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer — began to make scientific observations of Bennu between mid-August and early December. Read more…

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An interplanetary visitor has arrived at asteroid Bennu.

On Monday, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached the relatively small asteroid after an over two-year journey through the solar system. The 1,600-foot diameter space rock, about the height of the Empire State Building, is of great interest to scientists as the lump of rubble and organic materials might provide a future fuel depot for deep space missions, and likely holds ancient clues about our solar system’s formation.

Now that OSIRIS-REx — short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer — has arrived at Bennu, the eight-foot-long spacecraft will spend more than a year and a half surveying the asteroid, in preparation to carefully descend to the ground and perform its ambitious, primary mission. Read more…

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