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NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission has been steadily progressing since the spacecraft arrived at the diamond-shaped space Bennu has a few months back, but not everything has gone completely to plan.
The rock ended up being better, NASA originally expected. Bennu 's surface is absolutely packed with debris, posing a challenge for NASA' s team that 's still in the making. Now, using a laser instrument built into OSIRIS-REx, NASA has a unique look and feel.
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In a new post blog, NASA explains how it used a tool called OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA) to scan much of Bennu's surface. The instrument paints a picture of the hard surfaces the laser bounces off, giving NASA researchers a detailed glimpse at the asteroid's rocky surface.
Choosing the most dangerous maneuver – a brief touchdown and sample collection – succeeds or fails. Touching down in an area with too much debris could be catastrophic for the probe, resulting in damage to the spacecraft itself and potentially compromising one of its major objectives.
The three-dimensional laser model of the asteroid gives NASA's team a bit more information on what parts of the asteroid appear safer than others. Avoiding large boulders is obviously key, but with so few seemingly "clean" spaces on Bennu it is still a challenge to decide where to collect a sample.
NASA still has plenty of time to make a decision, however, with the probe scheduled to remain in orbit around the world. In the meantime we'll be learning more and more about the oddly-shaped asteroid as OSIRIS-REx continues to relay data back to Earth.
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- NASA 's asteroid probe shot Bennu with a laser, and this is the result
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