A SwRI-led study found that the rocky fragments dominating the surface asteroid Bennu are weakly bound, exhibiting near-zero cohesion, probably due to size and low gravity of the small body.

Scientists at Lab are unraveling the mysteries of Bennu, a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid, using cutting-edge technology. The ...

In 2016, NASA embarked on a new and unique mission: sending the Osiris-REx spacecraft to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu to study the rocky space object and collect samples to return to ...

The spacecraft reached Bennu in 2018 after traveling 320 million kilometers from Earth. It spent two years mapping its surface, then collected a 120g sample before landing back on Earth in 2023.

OSIRIS-REx found that Bennu’s surface was far rougher than thought, and mission controllers spent years finding a spot on Bennu’s where the spacecraft could quickly touchdown and gather samples.

In 2018, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission reached asteroid 101955 Bennu. Two years later, the spacecraft snagged a sample of its surface, which has since been returned to Earth. Now, astronomers are ...

Climatic and ecological consequences Responses to dust injections of 400 million tonnes from a Bennu-type asteroid impact: spatial changes in surface temperature, total precipitation, percentage ...