{"id":95466,"date":"2019-03-19T13:44:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T17:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//?p=95466"},"modified":"2019-06-07T11:53:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T15:53:47","slug":"asteroid-bennu-gives-nasas-osiris-rex-mission-team-lots-of-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//asteroid-bennu-gives-nasas-osiris-rex-mission-team-lots-of-surprises/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466//","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid Bennu Gives NASA/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2019s OSIRIS-REx Mission Team Lots of Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes the unexpected is more exciting than finding exactly what you thought you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2019d find, and this is indeed the case for the science team involved in NASA/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2019s OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sample mission./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

This mission, a first for the United States, aims to collect a sample from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu and bring it back to Earth in 2023. The spacecraft left Kennedy Space Center in September 2016 and arrived at Bennu in December 2018./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

UCF physics Professor Humberto Campins, one of the co-investigators on the mission, could barely contain his excitement about the discoveries./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201cIt is so much more than we were expecting. There are all sorts of surprises from a very complex topography to the composition of the surface./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201d /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2013 Humberto Campins, UCF professor/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201cIt is so much more than we were expecting,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201d he says from his campus office in Orlando. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201cWe/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2019ve been reviewing images and other data for months and many things we expected, including the overall shape, were right on. But there are all sorts of surprises from a very complex topography to the composition of the surface. We are refining our encounter plans because this asteroid is so interesting./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

The team, led by 海角直播 of Arizona Professor Dante Lauretta, shared some of the mission/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2019s findings today at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. The team, which includes dozens of scientists from across the nation and the world, also reported some of its preliminary findings in Nature and Nature Astronomy, which published several articles today. Lauretta had another surprise for those attending the conference: He announced that Bennu is ejecting particles into space./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

That discovery was made shortly after the spacecraft established orbit around Bennu. A navigation camera on the spacecraft captured an image that showed particles off the surface of the asteroid. The team readjusted the array of science and navigation instruments onboard to get a better look, Campins says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201cIt means this is an active asteroid instead of an inert body,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201d Campins says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201cWe do not know yet how the particles are being released from the surface, but they pose a whole new set of questions. This is what science is about /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u2013 inquiry and discovery. It is the most exciting time of my career./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/95466/n