NASA asteroid OSIRIS-REx mission landed on surface similar to 'plastic bullet pit'

Nearly two years ago, NASA made history when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly "tagged" 101955 Bennu to collect a regolith sample 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 posted this week (via Mashable), the agency revealed that OSIRIS-REx would have sunk in Bennu had the spacecraft not immediately fired its thrusters after hitting the surface of the asteroid.

"It turns out that the particles that make up Bennu's exterior are so loosely packed and lightly bound together that if a person walked on Bennu, they would feel very little resistance, as if stepping into a plastic ball pits that are popular play areas for children,” NASA said.

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That's not what scientists expected to find on Bennu. Observing the asteroid from Earth, it was expected that its surface would be covered in a smooth, sandy beach-like material. Bennu's reaction to the landing of OSIRIS-REx also intrigued scientists. After briefly interacting with the asteroid, the spacecraft left a crater 26 feet (8 meters) wide. In lab tests, the pickup procedure "barely made a divot."

After analyzing data from the spacecraft, they discovered that it encountered the same resistance that a person on Earth would feel when pressing the plunger of a French press coffee carafe. "At the time we fired our thrusters to leave the surface, we were still plunging into the asteroid," said Ron Ballouz, a scientist with the OSIRIS-REx team.

According to NASA, its findings on Bennu 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 very counter-intuitive ways," said OSIRIS-REx team member Patrick Michel.

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