NASA’s Lucy mission is about to fly past asteroid Donaldjohanson, a strange, elongated rock in the main belt. While this ...

NASA OSIRIS-REx sample collection event at Asteroid Bennu saw the spacecraft plunge its arm into the surface. Find out how ...

Much of what scientists know about the early Solar System comes from meteorites – ancient rocks that travel through space and ...

The Southwest Research Institute-led Lucy mission is preparing to survey the next target in its epic 4-billion-mile, 12-year, 11-asteroid tour. On April 20, 2025, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will fly past ...

Only 30%-50% of the remaining objects survive the atmospheric passage and become meteorites. The debris pieces whose orbits bring them closer to the Sun tend to be significantly more durable, making ...

So, the OSIRIS‑REx mission ventured to the asteroid Bennu to retrieve an unaltered ... likely gets broken down through heat stress when its orbit takes it close to the Sun.

Brand new research has produced a better estimate of its size and orbit, which give it a 3.8 percent ... and not a rubble pile like the large asteroids Bennu and Ryugu. It was probably a fragment ...

Carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid Bennu as seen from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx ... likely gets broken down through heat stress when its orbit takes it close to the Sun. As carbonaceous chondrites orbit ...