Like boot prints on the Moon, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft left its mark on asteroid Bennu. Now, new images — taken during the spacecraft’s final fly-over on April 7 — reveal the aftermath of its historic encounter with the asteroid.
Like boot prints on the Moon, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft left its mark on asteroid Bennu. Now, new images — taken during the spacecraft’s final fly-over on April 7 — reveal the aftermath of its historic encounter with the asteroid.
The spacecraft flew within 2.3 miles (3.7 km) of the asteroid — the closest it has been since the Touch-and-Go, or TAG, sample collection event on Oct. 20, 2020. During TAG, the spacecraft’s sampling head sunk 1.6 feet (48.8 centimeters) into the asteroid’s surface and simultaneously fired a pressurized charge of nitrogen gas, churning up surface material and driving some into the collection chamber. The spacecraft’s thrusters also launched rocks and dust during the maneuver to reverse course and safely back away from the asteroid.
Comparing the two images reveals obvious signs of surface disturbance. At the sample collection point, there appears to be a depression, with several large boulders evident at the bottom, suggesting that they were exposed by sampling. There is a noticeable increase in the amount of highly reflective material near the TAG point against the generally dark background of the surface, and many rocks were moved around.
Where thrusters fired against the surface, substantial mass movement is apparent. Multiple sub-meter boulders were mobilized by the plumes into a campfire ring–like shape — similar to rings of boulders seen around small craters pocking the surface.
Jason Dworkin, the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, noticed that one boulder measuring 4 feet (1.25 meters) across on the edge of the sampling site seemed to appear only in the post-TAG image. “The rock probably weighs around a ton, with a mass somewhere between a cow and a car.”
Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona and the mission’s principal investigator, later pointed out that this boulder is likely one of those present in the pre-TAG image, but much nearer the sampling location, and estimates it was thrown a distance of 40 feet (about 12 meters) by the sample collection event.
In order to compare the before and after images, the team had to meticulously plan this final flyover. “Bennu is rough and rocky, so if you look at it from a different angle or capture it at a time when the sun is not directly overhead, that dramatically changes what the surface looks like,” says Dathon Golish, a member of the OSIRIS-REx image processing working group, headquartered at the University of Arizona. “These images were deliberately taken close to noon, with the Sun shining straight down, when there’s not as many shadows.”
“These observations were not in the original mission plan, so we were excited to go back and document what we did,” Golish said. “The team really pulled together for this one last hurrah.”
The spacecraft will remain in Bennu’s vicinity until departure on May 10, when the mission will begin its two-year return cruise back to Earth. As it approaches Earth, the spacecraft will jettison the Sample Return Capsule (SRC) that contains the sample from Bennu. The SRC will then travel through Earth’s atmosphere and land under parachutes at the Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023.
Once recovered, the capsule will be transported to the curation facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the sample will be removed for distribution to laboratories worldwide, enabling scientists to study the formation of our solar system and Earth as a habitable planet. NASA will set 75% of the sample aside for future generations to study with technologies not invented yet.
The OSIRIS-REx mission is the first NASA mission to visit a near-Earth asteroid, survey the surface, and collect a sample to deliver to Earth.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For more information about OSIRIS-REx visit: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
By Mikayla Mace Kelley
University of Arizona, Tuscon, Ariz.
and Rani Gran
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Last Updated: Apr 15, 2021
Editor: Rob Garner
As all the plants and microbial life salivate at that picture.
Indirectly also and esp, our heart muscles and brains
Typical NASA, got it the wrong way round.
Should’ve left the Sputnik there and brought the asteroid home
Space vandals /sc
Ack! Pffft! The nature-worshippers will lament the “polluting” of a pristine space rock. EPA bureaucraps will demand regulating space “emissions”.
It’s happening already. The loonies are already complaining about Musk’s methane emissions when Starship venting occurs.
Andromeda strain, here we come.
NASA should have used a variant of the non-disturbing lunar lander motors.
We won’t be able to do these missions within 2 generations as NASA gets filled with diversity hires who think the hard math needed is a form of white racism. A return to the Dark Ages while China laughs at the west’s baizou.
Perhaps there will be a healthy private space industry. China will have its own set of problems, particularly related to demographics and increased number of retirees.
China set about solving its retiree program, then decided to let the rest of the world have it, too.
Enjoy those lock downs.
Samples from Mars would be interesting but apparently require a bigger machine and more fuel?
That’s being worked on; the Perseverance rover currently on Mars will collect various samples, put them in sample tubes and leave them on Mars. A future mission is being worked on to pick up the sample tubes and transport them to rocket (still in the design phase) which will launch them into Mars orbit where they will be sent to yet another mission already in Mars Orbit (still in the design phase) which will transport the samples back to Earth (rather complicated isn’t).
Seems like you could send and land a robotic lab much more easily than trying to return samples back to earth.
escape velocity from Mars = 5000 meters/ second (a little less than half of Earth’s)
escape velocity from Bennu = 0.5 to 0.7 meters/ second
The mean orbital velocities are different, too; a returning probe would have to end up at approximately Earth’s orbital velocity, so it’s the diff between the starting point’s velocity and Earth’s:
Mars: 24 km/sec
Bennu: 28 km/sec
Earth: 30 km/sec
Can’t seem to find the environmental impact statement for this project…
The viewing positions are sufficiently different that, with a little effort, a stereo view can be obtained. Although, those without experience in direct viewing will find the use of a stereoscope necessary. The surroundings can actually be seen in relief, but the center area is problematic because features have actually been removed.
Yes, Clyde you’re right…the crater shows up really well with a bit of a mess in the interior. You must be a geologist too with experience with mirror stereoscopes or the use of naked eyeballs when out in the field!
Alastair
Yes, my degrees are in geology. However, I was first introduced to stereo-viewing while assigned to the Photo Interpretation Research Division at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (Hanover, NH), while in the Army. I took a course in air-photo interpretation from the director of the division at a local community college.
An ironic outcome was that after I got out of the Army, I had to take a required course in geologic interpretation of air photos to finish my under-graduate program. (I had been drafted at the end of my junior year.) I was the only student who had previous experience with air-photo interpretation; the professor gave me a B in the course! 🙂 During the two years I had been at the lab, I participated in a classified air-photo study of the results of B-52 bombing runs in Vietnam, and did an independent research project on the appearance of geologic materials with false-color, camouflage-detection IR film.
I suspect that there are a lot of geologists who haunt this forum, which is a reason I mentioned the ability to view the crater in stereo.
Another funny thing, is that later in my career I moved into the remote sensing field. While using a software package called ENVI, marketed at the time by RSI, I developed a technique for merging multispectral satellite imagery with a digital elevation model and made synthetic ‘air-photo’ pairs that could be used for stereo-viewing. When I told the marketing manager at RSI (who had a degree in geography) what I had done, she said, “Who would want to do that?” Oh well!
It’s the last untaxed, unclaimed property lot in the inner solar system. Is it on Zillow yet?
The lander feet should have been made to leave pawprints.
Did they check for arrowheads?
Amazing that not one grain of moon dust was disturbed.
NASA continues to decline.
Perhaps on Earth, that boulder weighed a ton.
On Bennu? Not.
Nor is the material as consolidated on Bennu as it would on Earth.
Perhaps if NASA would describe the power of their rockets against Bennu?
Shouldn’t this landing area be designated as Terrain-OSIRIS-Rex.