The asteroid is named after the mythological Bennu-bird, an ancient Egyptian deity linked with the sun and rebirth. The surface features will now also be named after mythological birds.

I call Bennu the “trickster asteroid” because it constantly surprised us and challenged us. The most surprising thing that directly impacted the mission is the rugged nature of Bennu’s surface. We ...

The asteroid known as Bennu has revealed some tantalizing secrets to NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Some rocks and surface features of the asteroid appear to indicate that water once flowed on ...

Astronomers estimate that an asteroid this large comes this close to Earth only about once every 7,500 years. It also appears ...

Just a few months later, in November, it delivered clearer images that showed the asteroid’s shape and some of its surface features. Bennu is slightly wider than the Empire State Building is ...

OSIRIS-REx spent the next 20 months characterizing Bennu. The asteroid didn’t disappoint and turned out to be ... Its goals include observing any shifting surface features and alterations to ...

W hat is the NASA asteroid mission all about? -A NASA spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Sept. 8, 2016.

What the frack — During its last flyby of the asteroid, the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS) obtained images of the surface of Bennu while orbiting as close as 0.4 miles from the asteroid.

Asteroid Bennu is a near-Earth Object with a diameter of approximately 500 meters (which is about 3/10 of a mile). It orbits around the Sun every 436.6 days and comes within a close distance of 0. ...

Scientists have discovered the essential building blocks to life on a sample from a distant asteroid. The sample, which the ...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, dropping off its sample of dust and pebbles gathered from the surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu.. Analysis of this sample will help ...

Hayabusa2 has been in space since 2014, and it slowly made its way to an orbit 20 km above the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. In late 2018, the spacecraft made a close approach to the asteroid and ...