OSIRIS-REx Flyover of Site Nightingale

Mar 6, 2020 | Bennu Mappers, OSIRIS-REx, Spacecraft

On Mar. 3, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft performed a low-altitude flyover of site Nightingale. During the pass, science observations of asteroid Bennu took place from a distance of approximately 820 ft (250 m) – the closest the spacecraft has ever been to the asteroid’s surface. The primary goal of this flyover was to collect high-resolution imagery for the team to locate the site’s best areas for collecting a sample. Credit: University of Arizona.

The OSIRIS-REs mission did a 250m flyover of the Nightingale site on Bennu. This is the primary choice of sample site, and this flyover not only got them better data, but it also allowed the mission team to practice the slightly crazy maneuvers that are needed to pass close to the asteroid’s surface. While we haven’t seen these new images, we can tell you they are full of rocks. All joking aside, OSIRIS-REx is designed to collect objects 2cm in size and smaller, and these new images will have sufficient resolution for the mission team to figure out if this kind of debris is present in the sample site. This object is turning out to be rocks on boulders surrounded by rocks with granular material of every size scattered in between.

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