APOD: 2019 December 23 - Places for OSIRIS REx to Touch Asteroid Bennu

Good morning, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) video clip (0:23) is titled "Places for OSIRIS REx to Touch Asteroid Bennu." Bennu was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey on September 11, 1999. It makes a close approach to our planet every six years. Scientists think that within 10 million years of our solar system’s formation, Bennu’s present-day composition was already established. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas V 411 rocket on Sept. 8, 2016. It has been lurking near Asteroid Bennu since December 2018, gathering the data used to produce today's video. OSIRIS-REx will attempt to gather a surface sample from the asteroid in August 2020. The primary site Nightingale was selected just a few days ago (December 12, 2019). Mission plans call for the return of these samples to Earth in 2023.