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Writer Fuel: Asteroid Bennu Contains Building Blocks of Life

his mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2, 2018 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles (24 km). NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Nearly four years after NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft collected a sample from an asteroid, scientists are finally revealing the intriguing composition of the space rock. Among them, the near-Earth asteroid, known as Bennu, contains a surprising reservoir of a mineral called magnesium phosphate. These bright-white particles sprinkled in a sea of Bennu’s dark rocks is a … Read more

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Writer Fuel: What Do Cauliflower and Asteroid Bennu Have in Common?

cauliflower - deposit photos

Tasked with finding clues about origins of life on Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scooped up pieces of a rugged, rubble-pile asteroid named Bennu in late 2020 and delivered them to Earth about two months ago. On Monday (Dec. 11), scientists got their first detailed description of some of that extraterrestrial collection. “We definitely have hydrated, … Read more