Potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu stumps scientists with its odd make-up
Reported by Sharmila Kuthunur
Tasked with finding clues about the origins of life on Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scooped up pieces of a rugged rubble-pile asteroid named Bennu in late 2020 and delivered them to Earth about a few months ago. On 11 December, scientists got their first detailed description of some of that extraterrestrial collection. Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator and a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona, said the bits of the ancient asteroid that have been retrieved so far are rich in carbon and organic molecules. All the particles are very dark in colour and consist of centimetre- and millimetre-sized “hummocky boulders” that have a rough “cauliflower-like texture,” said Lauretta. “They cling to everything we touch them with.”