When NASA’s OSIRISREx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu in December 2018, its closeup images confirmed what mission planners had predicted nearly two decades before: Bennu is made of loose material weakly clumped together by gravity, and shaped like a spinning top. This major validation, however, was accompanied by a major surprise. Scientists had expected Bennu’s surface to consist of finegrained material like a sandy beach, but were instead greeted by a rugged world littered with boulders – the size of cars, the size of houses, the size of football fields. Now, thanks to laser altimetry data and highresolution imagery from OSIRISREx, we can take a tour of Bennu’s remarkable terrain.

Unlock the secrets of asteroid Bennu:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/...

Universal Production Music: “Timelapse Clouds” by Andy Blythe and Marten Joustra; “The Wilderness” by Benjamin James Parsons; “Maps of Deception” by IdrissElMehdi Bennani, Olivier Louis Perrot, and Philippe Andre Vandenhende

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Data provided by NASA/University of Arizona/CSA/York University/Open University/MDA

Dan Gallagher (USRA): Producer
Kel Elkins (USRA): Lead Visualizer
Jonathan North (USRA): Animator
Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA): Animator
Dan Gallagher (USRA): Narrator
Erin Morton (The University of Arizona): Support
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Support

This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13729

If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel:    / nasagoddard  

Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center:
· Instagram   / nasagoddard  
· Twitter   / nasagoddard  
· Twitter   / nasagoddardpix  
· Facebook:   / nasagoddard  
· Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc