Team solves mystery of asteroid Bennu’s formation

New sample analyses point to a surprising origin for the asteroid Bennu.

The asteroid Bennu orbits the Sun once every 1.2 years and approaches Earth every six years, passing within around 300,000 kilometres. NASA took advantage of this to collect material from the celestial body. In a spectacular operation in 2023, the US space agency collected samples from the surface of the asteroid Bennu by its OSIRIS-REx probe.

On September 23...