Asteroid Bennu in HD: NASA's stunning pictures of asteroid MILLIONS of miles from Earth

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft snapped these incredibly detailed asteroid photos from just one mile above Bennu. The newly released pictures taken on January 17, show Asteroid Bennu from its south pole. The detailed views come nearly three years after NASA’s asteroid-bound mission blasted off from Earth and into space. NASA astronauts are now charting Asteroid Bennu’s surface and learning as much as they can about the mysterious asteroid.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space-probe entered into orbit around the asteroid on December 31, less than a month after the spacecraft first approached its target.

When NASA entered orbit around Bennu, the spacecraft was an estimated 70 million miles (110 million km) from home.

OSIRIS-REx’s arrival in December marked the end of an 815-day-long lonely trek through space towards the asteroid.

NASA’s probe will next touch down on the asteroid to collect rock samples for return to Earth sometime in mid-2020.

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For the time being, NASA will have to rely on its multi-camera NavCam tool to snap photos of the space rock.

NASA in collaboration with the University of Arizona said: “These two OpNav images of Bennu’s southern hemisphere, which each have an exposure time of about 1.4 milliseconds, were captured January 17 from a distance of about one mile (1.6 km).

“They have been cropped and the contrast has been adjusted to better reveal surface features.

“The large boulder – fully visible in the middle of the left frame and in partial shadow in the lower portion of the right frame – is about 165 feet (50 meters) across.”

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Asteroid Bennu itself is estimated to measure somewhere in the range of 1,614ft (492m).

Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said: “The presence of hydrated minerals across the asteroid confirms that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study the composition of primitive volatiles and organics.

“When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system.”

NASA aims to return samples of Asteroid Bennu’s regolith to Earth no later than by the end of 2023.

After OSIRIS-REx scoops up some rocks from the asteroid, it will remain in space until it can safely return to Earth with the samples in a safe capsule.

source: express.co.uk