Planets and Moons ID: 13729

Tour of Asteroid Bennu

Released on October 8, 2020

When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu in December 2018, its close-up images confirmed what mission planners had predicted nearly two decades before: Bennu is made of loose material weakly clumped together by gravity, and shaped like a spinning top. This major validation, however, was accompanied by a major surprise. Scientists had expected Bennu’s surface to consist of fine-grained material like a sandy beach, but were instead greeted by a rugged world littered with boulders – the size of cars, the size of houses, the size of football fields. Now, thanks to laser altimetry data and high-resolution imagery from OSIRIS-REx, we can take a tour of Bennu’s remarkable terrain. Unlock the secrets of asteroid Bennu.

Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA.

Source Material

For More Information

NASA.gov

asteroidmission.org

Credits

Producer:
Dan Gallagher (USRA)

Lead Visualizer:
Kel Elkins (USRA)

Animators:
Jonathan North (USRA)
Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA)

Narrator:
Dan Gallagher (USRA)

Support:
Erin Morton (The University of Arizona)
Nancy Neal-Jones (NASA/GSFC)
William Steigerwald (NASA/GSFC)
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA.

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13729

Mission:
OSIRIS-REX

This item is part of this series:
Narrated Movies

Keywords:
SVS >> Asteroid
SVS >> Flyover
SVS >> HDTV
DLESE >> Narrated
SVS >> Geology
SVS >> OSIRIS-REx
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons
SVS >> Science
SVS >> Bennu