Tuesday, December 18, 2018

OSIRIS-REx arrives at Bennu - and finds water


About a week ago, the OSIRIS-REx satellite reached its destination, little asteroid Bennu. It's not exactly in orbit around the space boulder, because Bennu has so little gravity that it's hard to get gravitically captured.  Rather, it's keeping pace with Bennu right now.

But even though it just arrived, it discovered that Bennu has water.  Well, actually not now, but it did once, as it found minerals that require water to form.


OSIRIS-REx Discovers Water on Asteroid Bennu
"When OSIRIS-REx aimed those spectrometers [as it is now close enough to use them] at Bennu, they spotted signs of hydrogen and oxygen molecules bonded together in groups called hydroxyls. These hydroxyls are all over the asteroid in various rocks and clays, and the most likely way they could have gotten there is through some sort of interaction with water."

Bennu is a cute little somewhat octahedral asteroid, as this picture shows.



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