Bennu is also expected to pass closer to Earth than the moon in 2135 and if it does, our planet's gravitational pull could put it on the path to striking Earth on September 24, 2182.

A sample from asteroid Bennu contains organic compounds usually found at midocean ridges on Earth, suggesting Bennu may have been part of an ancient ocean world.

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 ...

A near-Earth asteroid named Bennu has a loosely packed surface similar to a pit of plastic balls, according to NASA scientists. A spacecraft collected a sample from the asteroid in October 2020 ...

NASA mission to asteroid returning to Earth with a sample 05:53. A small saucer-shape capsule carrying a half-pound of rocks and dust collected from an asteroid called Bennu — leftovers from the ...

The mission, which launched on Sept. 8, 2016, targeting the primordial asteroid Bennu, believed to have remained largely unchanged since the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago.

The rocky object called Bennu is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, currently making its closest approach to Earth every six years at about 186,000 miles (299,000 km) away. It might come even ...

Samples of matter returned from the asteroid Bennu support the theory that asteroids could have brought the building blocks of life to Earth, scientists report in a pair of new studies published ...

"Asteroid Bennu may be a fragment of an ancient ocean world. That's still highly speculative. But it's the best lead I have right now to explain the origin of that material," Lauretta said.

The asteroid Bennu is puzzling scientists, with samples from the space rock showing weirder properties than they expected. These include extremely high nitrogen levels and improbably magnetic ...

Over the past seven years, a NASA spacecraft has put 4.4 billion miles on the odometer as it traveled into deep space to get to Bennu, an asteroid the length of the Empire State Building.. The ...

It took two years for NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe to return from asteroid Bennu before dropping off a small capsule as it flew past Earth, which was then recovered in the desert of the U.S ...