Bennu: A Celestial Bullet Dodged, or a Treasure Chest Unlocked? The Daring Mission of OSIRIS-REx Remember that scene in "Armageddon" where Bruce Willis blows up a giant asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Thankfully, Bennu, a real near-Earth asteroid, isn't hurtling towards us quite that aggressively. But it is still a celestial wanderer with a thrilling story, and the audacious mission of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to unlock its secrets. Bennu: A Time Capsule From the Solar System's Dawn Imagine a colossal rock, bigger than the Empire State Building, older than the dinosaurs, and potentially holding the key to the origins of life on Earth. That's Bennu, a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid formed in the fiery crucible of the early solar system, some 4.5 billion years ago. Unlike its metallic or rocky siblings, Bennu is a carbonaceous treasure trove, its dark, diamond-like surface coated in organic molecules and minerals untouched for eons. Studying these...
“The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can't imagine”