In 2018, the OSIRIS-REx mission arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Bennu to collect pristine samples, untouched by alterations induced by Earth's atmosphere, to be analyzed on Earth.

An early analysis of a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu suggests that the space rock had an unexpectedly water-rich past — and it may have even splintered off from an ancient ocean world ...

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.

The return capsule containing a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is seen shortly after touching down in the desert at the Department of ...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned samples from asteroid Bennu, which showed discoveries about life and the early solar system. These findings can now provide information into the potential ...

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 ...

The results of this first Bennu analysis, NASA says, show that the asteroid has likely experienced multiple water-related episodes before it coalesced into the mess of debris we know today.

The difference is that Bennu’s chemical footprint dates back to the start of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, around 100 million years before Bennu’s parent asteroid formed.

Bennu passes near Earth every six years and has had three close encounters with Earth in 1999, 2005, and 2011, experts said in the ScienceDirect study. There is a 1 in 2,700, or 0.037% chance that ...

Asteroid Bennu is the space rock with the highest known probability of hitting Earth in the next 200 years. NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will help us protect ourselves.

Specifically, it has a 1-in-2,700 chance (that’s just 0.037 percent) of hitting Earth in 2182. Bennu is just over ⅓ mile, or 560 meters, in diameter.