NASA’s asteroid Bennu samples reveal a 4.5-billion-year-old secret - Science Daily

Samples collected from asteroid Bennu by NASA are revealing surprising new details about how our Solar System formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. A new chemical analysis challenges earlier theories about the asteroid's birthplace and suggests that Jupiter played an important role in shaping the materials from which Bennu and other ancient objects formed. Bennu completes one orbit around the Sun every 1.2 years and makes a relatively close approach to Earth about every six years, coming within roughly 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles). NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission traveled to the asteroid, collected material from its surface, and successfully delivered the samples to Earth in 2023.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission encountered an unexpected mystery when it arrived at asteroid Bennu in 2018. Instead of the relatively smooth terrain that earlier observations had suggested, the spacecraft found a rugged landscape dominated by enormous boulders, with very few areas suitable for collecting samples. "When OSIRIS-REx got to Bennu in 2018, we were surprised by what we saw," said Andrew Ryan, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who led the mission's working group responsible for analyzing the physical and thermal properties of its samples. "We expected some boulders, but we anticipated at least some large regions with smoother, finer regolith that would be easy to collect. Instead, it looked like it was all boulders, and we were scratching our heads for a while. "

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission encountered an unexpected mystery when it arrived at asteroid Bennu in 2018. Instead of the relatively smooth terrain that earlier observations had suggested, the spacecraft found a rugged landscape dominated by enormous boulders, with very few areas suitable for collecting samples. "When OSIRIS-REx got to Bennu in 2018, we were surprised by what we saw," said Andrew Ryan, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who led the mission's working group responsible for analyzing the physical and thermal properties of its samples. "We expected some boulders, but we anticipated at least some large regions with smoother, finer regolith that would be easy to collect. Instead, it looked like it was all boulders, and we were scratching our heads for a while. "