101955 Bennu (provisional designation 1999 RQ 36) is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group discovered by the LINEAR Project on 11 September 1999. It is a potentially hazardous object that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table and has the third highest cumulative rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale . [ 9 ]

Oct 16, 2020 · Bennu is a primordial artifact preserved in the vacuum of space, orbiting among planets and moons and asteroids and comets. Because it is so old, Bennu could be made of material containing molecules that were present when life first formed on Earth.

Dec 20, 2024 · Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid that is about one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide at its equator. An ancient relic of our solar system’s early days, asteroid Bennu has seen more than 4.5 billion years of history.

Dec 17, 2024 · Bennu is a relatively small asteroid that passes close to Earth about every six years. Bennu was the target of NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx. The spacecraft delivered a sample of Bennu to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023.

4 days ago · The chemical building blocks of life have been found in the grainy dust of an asteroid called Bennu, an analysis reveals. Samples of the space rock, which were scooped up by a Nasa spacecraft and ...

Nov 21, 2024 · Scientists first caught sight of Bennu on Sept. 11, 1999, with a one-meter telescope near Socorro, New Mexico, during the Lincoln Laboratory Near Earth Research (LINEAR) survey. The asteroid was within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth (about 20 times the distance from Earth to the Moon).

3 days ago · When asteroids like Bennu hit the young Earth, they could have provided a complete package of complex molecules and the ingredients essential to life, such as water, phosphate and ammonia. Together, these components could have seeded Earth’s initially barren landscape to produce a habitable world.

Oct 11, 2023 · Initial studies of the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu sample collected in space and brought to Earth by NASA show evidence of high-carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock.

Oct 8, 2020 · Now, thanks to laser altimetry data and high-resolution imagery from OSIRIS-REx, we can take a tour of Bennu’s remarkable terrain. Unlock the secrets of asteroid Bennu. Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA.

4 days ago · Ranging from calcite to halite and sylvite, scientists identified traces of 11 minerals in the Bennu sample that form as water containing dissolved salts evaporates over long periods of time, leaving behind the salts as solid crystals.