The Asteroid Hunter: A Scientist’s Journey to the Dawn of our Solar System Hardcover – March 19, 2024 by Dante Lauretta (Author) Title: Bennu's Unexpected Challenges Author: Dante Lauretta
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
Title: Bennu's Unexpected Challenges Author: Dante Lauretta
After a successful launch in summer 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approached its target, Bennu. Pre-arrival telescopic data from the Arecibo planetary radar system and the Spitzer Space Telescope suggested Bennu's surface would be "beach-like" with particles smaller than an inch. However, upon arrival, the team discovered a rough, rugged, and boulder-strewn surface, like a "great big gravel pile," making it difficult to find a safe, flat landing site with small particles. Bennu also exhibited unexpected "popcorn" activity, continuously ejecting particles due to its microgravity. Despite carefully selecting the Nightingale landing site, the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) unexpectedly plunged into the fluid-like surface, overfilling and causing the collected sample to leak.
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| 0:29.8 | This is CBSI and the world. I'm John Patcher, visiting with Professor Dante S. Loretta. |
| 0:35.8 | His new book is The Asteroid Hunter, a scientist journey to the dawn of our solar system. |
| 0:42.3 | We're now in space. The asteroid Benu is approaching perihelian, meaning that it's close to the sun. The perfectly built Osiris |
| 0:50.1 | Rex spacecraft has approached it over a time period in which they count out at the Mike Drake |
| 0:56.8 | building in Arizona. They count each day, 438, 437, 436. Well, it's just days left. And we're now |
| 1:06.0 | accompanying Benu. However, there are surprises. And one surprise is, there's no beach. |
| 1:13.6 | What beach, Professor? What were you looking for? |
| 1:16.6 | Yeah, we mentioned that we discovered the asteroid in 1999, and it comes close to the Earth every six years. |
| 1:23.6 | So in 2005, when we selected it as our target, we performed an unprecedented |
| 1:28.8 | telescopic astronomical campaign. And two key instruments that we used were the Erecebo |
| 1:35.8 | planetary radar system, which was based in Puerto Rico, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, |
| 1:41.0 | which is part of NASA's Great Observatories program. Both of those suggested |
| 1:46.0 | the average size of particles on the surface of the asteroid was smaller than an inch or so. |
| 1:52.2 | And when you have two pieces of information that give you the same conclusion, you start to build |
| 1:56.7 | a lot of scientific confidence. And we thought that meant it was going to be gravelly or sandy on the surface and very easy |
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