Why Bennu?
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- Visualizations by:
- Adriana Manrique Gutierrez and
- Bailee DesRocher
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- Edited by:
- David Ladd
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- Produced by:
- David Ladd
- View full credits
The goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission is to collect a sample from an asteroid and bring it back to Earth. But just how did the OSIRIS-REx team choose Bennu from the over 500,000 known asteroids in the solar system? Watch this cartoon to find out!
Music provided by Killer Tracks: "Cheeky Chappy" - James Patrick Kaleth & Ross Andrew McLean.
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
This animated feature takes a fun look at how asteroid Bennu was chosen as the target for the OSIRIS-REx mission. Starting in 2008, from a field of over 500,000 known asteroids, scientists went through a process to narrow the choices down to 5 final candidates. The selection criteria was based on an asteroid’s proximity to Earth, its orbit and size, and its chemical composition.
Bennu is a B-type asteroid with an approximately 500-meter diameter. It completes an orbit around the Sun every 436.604 days (1.2 years) and every 6 years it comes very close to Earth, within 0.002 AU. Bennu’s size, primitive composition, and potentially hazardous orbit make it one of the most fascinating and accessible near-Earth objects, and the ideal target for the OSIRIS-REx mission. For more details, visit the OSIRIS-REx website at asteroidmission.org.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Music provided by Killer Tracks
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Animators
- Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
- Bailee DesRocher (USRA) [Lead]
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Video editor
- David Ladd (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.) [Lead]
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Art director
- Michael Lentz (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Producer
- David Ladd (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.) [Lead]
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Related Pages
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ID: 12318 Produced Video
Bennu Arrival
Read moreAfter traveling through space for more than 2 years and over 2 billion kilometers, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft arrived at its destination, asteroid Bennu, on Monday, Dec. 3, 2018. The spacecraft will spend almost a year surveying the asteroid with five scientific instruments with the goal of selecting a location that is safe and scientifically interesting to collect the sample. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023. ||
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ID: 13125 Produced Video
Arrival at Bennu
Read moreOSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu for a close encounter of the asteroid kind. || osiris-rex-deep-space-maneuver_1024x576.jpg (1024x576) [240.3 KB] || osiris-rex-deep-space-maneuver_print.jpg (1024x576) [38.0 KB] || osiris-rex-deep-space-maneuver.png (2664x1500) [1.4 MB] || osiris-rex-deep-space-maneuver_searchweb.png (320x180) [53.5 KB] || osiris-rex-deep-space-maneuver_thm.png (80x40) [3.8 KB] ||
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