>NASA has taken a breathtaking new image of near-Earth asteroid Bennu, captured by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from its new, second orbit of the extraterrestrial object. The new picture, snapped on June 13, provides a pretty much full-length view of Bennu, with half of its surface lit by the sun and the other half in near-complete shadow.

The image also manages to capture an interesting feature of Bennu — the protruding “mole” of its largest boulder, which sticks out at the bottom end of the asteroid (as oriented in this photo) and breaks up its relatively smooth contours. OSIREX-REx took this photo from only around 0.4 miles away from the rock, which is about two football fields away. From here, the cameras on the probe can capture detail as small as just 1.6 feet across on the asteroid’s surface.

This orbit breaks a record for closest orbit by a spacecraft to any object in our solar system, and will help NASA researchers investigate debris plumes spotted coming from the surface of the asteroid as it careens through space.

Full Size Image, click the zoomer. Much more impressive than the one below

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/nasas-best-yet-photo-of-asteroid-bennu-nails-the-dramatic-lighting/

Actually, just clicking on the “full size image” link in my post above opens it in this forum at full size.

Pleasing

dv said:

Pleasing

Looks very much like a huge heap of coal.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Pleasing

Looks very much like a huge heap of coal.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Pleasing

Looks very much like a huge heap of coal.

I was thinking that it looks like … okay, your description is better.

Most of those lumps of coal must have hit at very close to zero velocity.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Pleasing

Looks very much like a huge heap of coal.

I was thinking that it looks like … okay, your description is better.

Most of those lumps of coal must have hit at very close to zero velocity.

I’m thinking small bodies like this would be subject to major rearrangement after even minor disturbance. A very small impact might cause shudders that send material off the surface, only to gently reconnect some time later. So you get a fresh, “rugged” appearance even though the object may be very old.

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

Looks very much like a huge heap of coal.

I was thinking that it looks like … okay, your description is better.

Most of those lumps of coal must have hit at very close to zero velocity.

I’m thinking small bodies like this would be subject to major rearrangement after even minor disturbance. A very small impact might cause shudders that send material off the surface, only to gently reconnect some time later. So you get a fresh, “rugged” appearance even though the object may be very old.

I see what you mean. What goes up must come down – at the same speed.

So a fast impact would bury itself and send ejecta off slowly, to come back slowly and land on the surface half an elliptical orbit later. The returning ejecta would typically come in at no more than 0.7 km/hr, as against a speed of about 5000 km/hr or faster for the initial fast impact.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was thinking that it looks like … okay, your description is better.

Most of those lumps of coal must have hit at very close to zero velocity.

I’m thinking small bodies like this would be subject to major rearrangement after even minor disturbance. A very small impact might cause shudders that send material off the surface, only to gently reconnect some time later. So you get a fresh, “rugged” appearance even though the object may be very old.

I see what you mean. What goes up must come down – at the same speed.

So a fast impact would bury itself and send ejecta off slowly, to come back slowly and land on the surface half an elliptical orbit later. The returning ejecta would typically come in at no more than 0.7 km/hr, as against a speed of about 5000 km/hr or faster for the initial fast impact.

Would that be a way to collect asteroid samples?

Hit an object so that the ejecta flies off that can be collected by a craft following it ?

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

I’m thinking small bodies like this would be subject to major rearrangement after even minor disturbance. A very small impact might cause shudders that send material off the surface, only to gently reconnect some time later. So you get a fresh, “rugged” appearance even though the object may be very old.

I see what you mean. What goes up must come down – at the same speed.

So a fast impact would bury itself and send ejecta off slowly, to come back slowly and land on the surface half an elliptical orbit later. The returning ejecta would typically come in at no more than 0.7 km/hr, as against a speed of about 5000 km/hr or faster for the initial fast impact.

Would that be a way to collect asteroid samples?

Hit an object so that the ejecta flies off that can be collected by a craft following it ?

That is exactly how it’s being collected from Ryugu, the first sample that has already been collected, not the second sample.

I think Deep Impact did something similar at comet Tempel 1. Check web. Yes. Not collected, but the ejecta analysed using equipment both by the Deep Impact spacecraft and by the Swift X-ray telescope.