Researchers have learned to study the history of asteroids from their scars

By studying impact traces on the surface of the asteroid Bennu, the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. Research team

under the leadership of the University of Arizona was ablestudied the asteroid's past and discovered that, despite the asteroid's formation hundreds of millions of years ago, Bennu only recently came close to Earth.

This is a study published in the journalNature is a model for understanding the evolution of asteroids. The data will help scientists envision an understudied population of space objects and deepen their understanding of understudied parts of the solar system.

The researchers used imaging and lasermeasurements obtained during the two-year survey phase when the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft entered Bennu orbit. The device broke a record and became the smallest spacecraft to be launched into orbit.

Europe refused to use Russian and Chinese vaccines

In an article presented on the opening daymeeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, details the first observations and measurements of impact craters. On average, the group of scientists discovered rocks measuring 1 meter or larger, in which scars had formed, scars measuring tens of centimeters in size.

Automatic interplanetary mission OSIRIS-RExarrived at the asteroid Bennu at the end of 2018. The spacecraft was launched into orbit around the asteroid, and on October 20 landed on its surface and took a soil sample. The process of laying the samples is complicated by the fact that the probe is located at a distance of about 330 million kilometers from the Earth.

Read also:

- On the threatening Earth asteroid Apophis noticed a dangerous phenomenon. What's happening?

- Scientists have found out why children are the most dangerous carriers of COVID-19

- What the Parker Solar Probe discovered when it flew as close to the Sun as possible