OSIRIS-REx: samples from asteroid Bennu
OSIRIS-REx: muestras del asteroide Bennu
- Date
- 24 de septiembre de 2023 · confidence high
- Place
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
- Credited to
- NASA and the University of Arizona (Dante Lauretta)
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
The probe touched asteroid Bennu in 2020 and returned about 121 g of material in a capsule that landed in Utah, the largest asteroid sample to date. It contains carbon, water and salts such as sodium carbonates and phosphates.
Brines and salts were published in 2025. Hayabusa2 returned its sample earlier (2020) but in a smaller quantity.
What it led to
- evidence of brines on small primitive bodies
- data for planetary defence on the Yarkovsky effect
- the OSIRIS-APEX extension to Apophis (2029)