Why Is Asteroid Bennu So Rocky?
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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Sunlight reveals asteroid Bennu: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA.
- Detail, asteroid Bennu surface: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA.
Writer: Leah Ramsay
Designer: Leah Hustak
Science review: Dr. Christopher Britt
Education review: Jim Manning
Music from Music for Non-Profits
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A grid of photographs of celestial bodies moves up. A white line moves down and another across. Text, News from the universe. The text is above an image of Jupiter.
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Text, October 29, 2021. Why is asteroid Bennu so rocky? Scientists expected to collect a sample from a surface like a sandy beach when NASA's OSIRIS-Re x mission arrived at Bennu in 2018. A visualization of Bennu with a sandy surface.
The image slowly fades to black. An image from above turns.
Text, Instead, the surface was covered in boulders. A large boulder sits on a rocky surface.
Text, Scientists used machine learning to analyze 122 surface areas of Bennu.
They found that Bennu's porous rock is able to absorb impacts from meteroids, rather than breaking apart into smaller grains. The image comes into clearer focus and moves around the boulder.
Text, This agrees with findings by Japan's space agency on the similar asteroid Ryugu. The image moves quickly over the spherical rocky surface.
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Text, Asteroids are like fossils of the early Solar System. Understanding their properties provides clues to how the rest of the system -- including Earth and humanity -- came to be.
The rocky surface of Bennu.
Text, This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science institute in Baltimore Maryland