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posted by martyb on Sunday November 04 2018, @12:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the "space-rock-trio"-sounds-like-the-name-of-a-band dept.

Another Space Diamond! NASA Probe Snaps Great Photo of Asteroid Bennu

The asteroid Bennu is really coming into focus for NASA's approaching OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

OSIRIS-REx snapped eight photos of the 1,650-foot-wide (500 meters) Bennu on Monday (Oct. 29), when the probe was about 205 miles (330 kilometers) away from the space rock. Mission team members combined these images into a single "super-resolution" shot, which reveals boulders and other features on the asteroid's surface.

The striking photo also highlights Bennu's diamond shape, which is similar to that of the 3,000-foot-wide (900 m) asteroid Ryugu. Japan's Hayabusa2 mission has been orbiting Ryugu since late June and has dropped three separate landing craft onto the space rock's surface over the past five weeks.

101955 Bennu has an average diameter of 492 meters, compared to about 1 kilometer for 162173 Ryugu. New Horizons will fly by (486958) 2014 MU69, a 30-40 km object or objects, on January 1, capping the space rock trio for the year.

NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona photo.

Previously: New Horizons Spacecraft Approaches 2014 MU69; OSIRIS-REx Nears 101955 Bennu (images taken from 2.2 million km away)

Related: Hayabusa2 Reaches Asteroid 162173 Ryugu
Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu
Short-Lived MASCOT Lander Reaches Asteroid Ryugu


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 04 2018, @03:10AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday November 04 2018, @03:10AM (#757487) Journal

    The microgravity environment makes it a necessity. Looks like Ryugu experiences an estimated 1/80,000 g (could depend wildly on your location on the asteroid). Bennu is at 1/100,000 g.

    Things start to look more normal (or at least Moon-like) for the very largest asteroids. Vesta has 2.5% of Earth's gravity, while Ceres has a whopping 2.9%.

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