NASA spacecraft snaps detailed asteroid picture from closest orbit yet

<em>A picture of asteroid Bennu, taken by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from .4 miles away</em>

NASA’s asteroid-sampling spacecraft OSIRIS-REx just snapped its closest picture yet of Bennu, the deep-space rock it’s been hovering around since the end of last year. The high-resolution image highlights the object’s very rocky surface and even showcases a very large boulder on its southern half.

OSIRIS-REx took this up-close picture on June 13th, right after the spacecraft inserted itself into orbit around Bennu for the second time. The vehicle first got into Bennu’s orbit on December 31st, 2018, flying about a mile away from the asteroid’s surface. From that path, OSIRIS-REx mapped Bennu’s surface in intricate detail, and also observed some interesting things from this vantage point, including rocks spewing from Bennu’s surface.

Continue reading…

from The Verge – All Posts http://bit.ly/2Km5NzB
via IFTTT