CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid that may hold the key to life is getting its first visitor in billions of years.
Asteroid Bennu, a black roundish rock taller than the Empire State Building, is the intended target of a NASA spacecraft set to blast off Thursday night. Not only will the robotic probe named Osiris-Rex fly to this ancient asteroid, it will scout it out for two years before scooping up some gravel and dust, and deliver the samples back to Earth.
Bennu (BEHN'-oo) was discovered in 1999 and got its name for this mission 14 years later. A North Carolina schoolboy had the winning entry in an international student naming contest held by the University of Arizona, the Planetary Society and others; he likened the boxy spacecraft, with its twin solar wings and 10-foot mechanical arm, to the heron of Egyptian mythology, Bennu. The spacecraft shares that Egyptian motif, bearing the mythological god's name Osiris. Osiris-Rex also doubles as a NASA acronym.
5 facts about Bennu, the asteroid getting a visit from NASA
An asteroid that may hold the key to life is getting its first visitor in billions of years. Here are five tidbits about Bennu, chosen for NASA's first such mission from more than 500,000 known asteroids in our solar system:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid that may hold the key to life is getting its first visitor in billions of years.
Asteroid Bennu, a black roundish rock taller than the Empire State Building, is the intended target of a NASA spacecraft set to blast off Thursday night. Not only will the robotic probe named Osiris-Rex fly to this ancient asteroid, it will scout it out for two years before scooping up some gravel and dust, and deliver the samples back to Earth.
Bennu (BEHN'-oo) was discovered in 1999 and got its name for this mission 14 years later. A North Carolina schoolboy had the winning entry in an international student naming contest held by the University of Arizona, the Planetary Society and others; he likened the boxy spacecraft, with its twin solar wings and 10-foot mechanical arm, to the heron of Egyptian mythology, Bennu. The spacecraft shares that Egyptian motif, bearing the mythological god's name Osiris. Osiris-Rex also doubles as a NASA acronym.
