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Check out these amazing Bennu asteroid images taken by NASA spacecraft

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OSIRIS-REx Sample Collection at Asteroid Bennu: SamCam View of TAGSAM

NASA has released an incredible set of images (top) showing the Bennu asteroid up close.

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They were captured by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Tuesday, October 20, when it successfully touched the asteroid in an effort to gather rock and dust samples from its surface. It’s the first time the space agency has performed such a feat.

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The remarkably clear images show the spacecraft’s approach to the surface of Bennu, which is traveling through space at 63,000 mph, more than 200 million miles from Earth. They also show the moment its robotic arm strikes the surface of the asteroid to stir up rock and dust for collection.

“After touchdown, the spacecraft fired its thrusters to back away from Bennu,” NASA said. “Preliminary telemetry shows the spacecraft remains in good health. The spacecraft was traveling at 0.2 mph (10 cm/sec) when it contacted sample site Nightingale and then backed away at 0.9 mph (40 cm/sec).”

The images were captured across a five-minute period, NASA said. The imaging sequence starts at around 82 feet (25 meters) above the surface of the asteroid, and runs through the back-away maneuver, with the last image in the sequence taken at approximately 43 feet (13 meters) in altitude — about 35 seconds after backing away.

Bennu is believed to have formed in the first 10 million years of our solar system’s existence — over 4.5 billion years ago — and so scientists hope that collected samples will tell us more about how it came to be, and even reveal new information about the origins of life.

NASA launched the mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida in 2016 with the aim of making a brief touchdown on Bennu, which it achieved on Tuesday. The asteroid is around 500 meters in length (about the size of the Empire State Building), while the touch-and-go spot where the spacecraft landed is described by NASA as “the size of a small parking lot.”

We won’t know until next week if Tuesday’s tricky maneuver, in which the spacecraft’s robotic arm tried to grab at least 60 grams worth of material from the asteroid’s surface, was a success.

If it was, the sample will be brought to Earth for scientific analysis. However, if OSIRIS-REx failed to collect a sufficient amount of material, a second collection attempt will take place in January 2021.

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Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA has collected a whopping 121 grams of sample from asteroid Bennu
A view of eight sample trays containing the final material from asteroid Bennu. The dust and rocks were poured into the trays from the top plate of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head. 51.2 grams were collected from this pour, bringing the final mass of asteroid sample to 121.6 grams.

When the OSIRIS-REx dropped a capsule in the Utah desert last year, it made headlines around the globe for returning NASA's first sample of an asteroid to Earth. Scientists were eager to get their hands on the sample of asteroid Bennu to learn about the early formation of the solar system, but actually getting at the sample proved to be rather trickier than imagined.

Scientists were able to extract 70 grams of material from the sample canister relatively easily, making it by far the largest asteroid sample ever brought to Earth, but two troublesome fasteners made it difficult to extract the rest of the sample. The team knew it had plenty more sample inside, but it had to be patient as special new tools were constructed that could undo the fasteners without losing a single gram of the precious sample.

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Earth is frequently bombarded by small asteroids, which burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. However, identifying and tracking these asteroids is an important step in protecting the Earth against the threat of larger and potentially more dangerous impacts. NASA recently predicted the impact of a small asteroid that struck Germany using its impact prediction system, Scout.

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NASA cracks open its first sample from an asteroid, foiling two sticky screws
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx curation engineer, Neftali Hernandez, attaches one of the tools developed to help remove two final fasteners that prohibited complete disassembly of the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head that holds the remainder of material collected from asteroid Bennu. Engineers on the team, based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, developed new tools that freed the fasteners on Jan. 10.

NASA returned its first sample of an asteroid to Earth last year, landing a sample collected from asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert in September. Researchers were able to extract 70 grams of material from the canister that had been carried back to Earth by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, making this the largest asteroid sample ever brought to Earth. The scientists involved knew there was more material inside the mechanism, but getting at it proved difficult -- until now, as NASA has announced it has now managed to open up the troublesome mechanism.

You might think it would be an easy job to unscrew a canister and dump out the material inside, but extraction was a lengthy and technical process. That's because the focus was on preserving as much of the precious sample as possible, trying not to let any of the particles get lost. The issue was with two of the 25 fasteners that held the sample inside the collection mechanism.  The mechanism is kept inside a glove box to prevent any loss, and there were only certain tools available that worked with the glove box. So when the fasteners wouldn't open with the tools they had, the team couldn't just go at them with any other tool.

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