NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft captured the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean with Australia in the lower left and the southwestern United States and Baja California in the upper right 106,000 miles away. The spacecraft was launched in September 8, 2016 to collect samples from the asteroid, Bennu, and bring them back to Earth. To get the right trajectory for traveling toward the asteroid, Osiris-Rex needed to fling past Earth. This image was taken as the spacecraft flew past the planet.
Osiris-Rex is on a seven year mission to gather samples from the asteroid that was a building block of our earlier solar system, four and a half billion years ago. Bennu has a fourteen month orbit, that swings close to Earth every six years. Sunlight warms the surface of the asteroid causing a shift in its orbit that could eventually threaten our Earth. The spacecraft will take two years to reach Bennu and then will spend one year to map its surface. During July of 2020, the spacecraft will land on Bennu's surface gathering samples. If all goes as planned, the samples should land on Earth on September 24, 2023. This exposition helps us understand the birth of our solar system as well as learning how to protect Earth from Bennu, who may one day vear too close to home.
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March 2018
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