Mission Reports
New Frontiers
Mission Reports
Mission Reports
Mission Reports
Mission Reports
Mission Reports
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finds particles flying off asteroid Bennu
The early months of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission’s exploration of asteroid Bennu have revealed big surprises, scientists said Tuesday, including plumes of particles streaming away from the asteroid, sometimes with enough velocity for rocks to break out of Bennu’s tenuous gravitational grip and escape into space.
Mission Reports
OSIRIS-REx finds rugged terrain on asteroid Bennu
Some time next year, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend to the boulder-strewn surface of asteroid Bennu, reach out with a robotic arm, and fetch a sample for return to Earth, but an initial survey of the space rock millions of miles from Earth suggests the robotic mission may have few suitable targets for the touch-and-go maneuver.
Mission Reports
Most distant object ever visited resembles a snowman
The first well-resolved image of the faraway chunk of rock fleetingly visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on New Year’s Day reveals the object — officially named 2014 MU69 but nicknamed Ultima Thule — is made of two lobes scientists say came together in an ancient slow-speed collision just as the solar system’s planets were forming.
Mission Reports
Mission Reports
New Horizons scientists elated as Ultima Thule’s shape comes into view
A fresh image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft released Tuesday showed the mission’s distant flyby target a billion miles beyond Pluto — nicknamed Ultima Thule — has an elongated shape like that of a peanut shell or a bowling pin, and the prospect of higher-resolution pictures arriving on Earth later in the day had scientists salivating for more.