The most accurate images of "the asteroid of the end of the world"

OSIRIS-Rex, NASA's spacecraft, has sent the most detailed images of the asteroid Pino to date, a sign of the continued success of one of the space exploration missions the most ambitious in the history of humanity.

The latest PENO images were taken by the NavCam 1 camera mounted on the spacecraft on January 17, 1.6 km above the surface of the asteroid.

The images show Pano's South Pole in truly amazing details, with initial studies of the asteroid, supposed to be on Earth, continuing to pose a potential threat to life on our planet.

The OSIRIS-Rex mission was launched in 2016 with the stated goal of studying and collecting samples of the 1700-foot (1580-meter) space rock.

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The vehicle arrived in Pino in December 2018, after traveling two billion kilometers from the Earth, but it is only recently that it began to go around the asteroid, the most small object explored by a spaceship built by the man.

Pino is very small and his gravity field is weak. NavCam 1 is therefore very important for tracking the asteroid and maintaining a difficult orbit.

A few days after arriving in Pino, OSIRIS-Rex sent pilot data revealing that the asteroid contained water. The vehicle will collect at least two ounces of samples that will be returned to Earth in 2023.

Source: RT