Asteroid Landed by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission Had Surface Like ‘Plastic Ball Pit’

Nearly two years ago, NASA made history when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly “tagged” 101955 Bennu to sample regolith from the asteroid’s surface. While the mission won’t return to Earth until late next year, NASA has shared new information about the celestial body. In an update published this week (via Mashable ), the agency revealed that OSIRIS-REx would have sunk into Bennu had the spacecraft not fired its engines immediately after touching down on the asteroid’s surface.

“It turns out that the particles that make up Bennu’s exterior are so loosely packed and loosely connected to each other that if a person stepped on Bennu, they would feel very little resistance, as if they were stepping into a pit of plastic balls, which are popular play areas for children,” NASA said.

This is not what scientists thought they would find on Bennu. Observing the asteroid from Earth, the expectation was that its surface would be covered with smooth sandy beach material. Bennu’s reaction to OSIRIS-REx’s touch also puzzled scientists. After a brief interaction with the asteroid, the spacecraft left a crater 26 feet (8 meters) wide. In lab tests, the pickup procedure “barely made a dent.”

After analyzing the data from the spacecraft, they found that it encountered the same resistance that a person on Earth would experience while pushing the plunger of a coffee carafe with a French press. “As we fired our engines to leave the surface, we were still diving into the asteroid,” said OSIRIS-REx team scientist Ron Balluz.

According to NASA, Bennu’s discoveries could help scientists better interpret remote observations of other asteroids. In turn, this could help the agency design future asteroid missions. “I think we’re still at the beginning of understanding what these bodies are, because they behave in a very counterintuitive way,” said Patrick Michel, a member of the OSIRIS-REx team.

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