OSIRIS-REx Targets Near-Earth Asteroid

  • Released Thursday, February 7, 2013
  • Updated Monday, June 17, 2019 at 5:46PM
  • ID: 11098

NASA is sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to asteroid Bennu to better understand the evolution of its orbit and retrieve a pristine sample for study on Earth.

For complete transcript, click here.

On February 15, 2013, a 45-meter asteroid called Duende (formerly 2012 DA14) passed within 28,000 kilometers of Earth - the closest approach on record for an object of this size. Although such Near-Earth Objects, or NEO's, cross our planet's orbit on a regular basis, only a handful are large enough to pose a threat. One of these objects is asteroid Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ36), a "leftover" from the formation of our solar system. In an effort to better understand NEO's and our planet's own origins, NASA is sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to asteroid Bennu to study the evolution of its orbit and retrieve a sample for return to Earth.

OSIRS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta, University of Arizona, discusses the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14.

This video file contains animations of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and an interview with NASA Deputy Project Scientist Dr. Joseph Nuth.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Arizona

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • None

You may also like...

Loading recommendations...