A NASA spacecraft reached an asteroid called Bennu on Monday (December 3rd) that’s some 76 million miles away after a two-year journey, on a mission to gather asteroid samples for return to Earth, something that’s only been done until now by Japan. The Osiris-Rex spacecraft got within 12 miles of the asteroid, which is 1,600 feet across, and will get even closer and go into orbit around it on December 31st. It will stay with Bennu for a year, before vacuumed up samples of the surface in a container leave for an arrival back on Earth in 2023.
Hello, asteroid Bennu! Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft flew over 2 billion miles to meet you. Here, the spacecraft's camera captures a full rotation of the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx will study Bennu for almost a year & prepare to collect and return a sample to Earth. https://t.co/WG3vVeRoV1 pic.twitter.com/2itcL6qxtC
— NASA (@NASA) December 3, 2018
