“It turns out that the particles that make up Bennu’s exterior are so loosely packed and loosely connected that if someone stepped on Bennu they would feel very little resistance, like stepping into a popular toy pit of plastic balls. 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 in smooth, sandy beach-like material. Bennu’s reaction to OSIRIS-REx’s touchdown had 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 process “barely made a difference.” After analyzing data from the spacecraft, they found it encountered the same resistance that a person on Earth would feel when squeezing the plunger on a French-style coffee carafe. “By the time we fired our thrusters to leave the surface, we were still sinking into the asteroid,” said Ron Baluz, OSIRIS-REx team scientist. According to NASA, its Bennu findings could help scientists better interpret distant observations of other asteroids. In turn, this could help the agency plan future asteroid missions. “I think we’re still at the beginning of understanding what these bodies are, because they behave in a very contradictory way,” said OSIRIS-REx team member Patrick Michel.
