Nearly two years ago, NASA made history when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly “labeled” 101955 Bennu to collect a sample of regolith from the asteroid’s surface. Although the mission will not return to Earth until the end of next year, NASA shared new information about the celestial body. In an update released this week (via Mashable), the agency revealed that OSIRIS-REx would have sunk into Bennu if the spacecraft had not fired its thrusters immediately after touching the asteroid’s surface.
“It turns out that the particles that make up Bennu’s exterior are so lightly packaged and lightly bonded together that if a person stepped on Bennu, he would feel very little resistance, as if you were entering a well of plastic balls that are a popular game. for children, “NASA said.
This is not what scientists thought they would find in Bennu. Observing the asteroid from Earth, it was expected that its surface would be covered with a smooth, sand-like material like a beach. Bennu’s reaction to the OSIRIS-REx landing also baffled scientists. After briefly interacting with the asteroid, the spacecraft left a crater 26 feet (8 meters) wide. In laboratory tests, the collection procedure “barely made a divot.”
After analyzing the spacecraft data, they found that it found the same resistance a person on Earth would feel as he squeezed the plunger of a French press coffee bottle. “When we fired our propellers to get off the surface, we were still submerged in the asteroid,” said Ron Ballouz, a scientist on the OSIRIS-REx team.
According to NASA, their findings on Bennu could help scientists better interpret remote observations of other asteroids. In turn, this could help the agency design future asteroid missions. “I think we are still at the beginning of understanding what these bodies are, because they behave in a very counterintuitive way,” said Patrick Michel, a member of the OSIRIS-REx team.
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