Topic: OSIRIS-REx to asteroid Bennu: Viewing, comments
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 26716 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 05-01-2013 02:12 PM
OSIRIS-REx to asteroid Bennu: mission viewing, comments
This thread is for discussion, comments and questions regarding the OSIRIS-REx mission to return samples from asteroid Bennu and the updates posted under: NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission.
NASA will launch the OSIRIS-REx (Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer) probe to Bennu in 2016 to retrieve samples that could better explain our solar system's formation and how life began. OSIRIS-REx will be the first United States mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 26716 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 05-01-2013 02:19 PM
Today's news regarding the naming of asteroid (101955) 1999 RQ36 as "Bennu" has a collectSPACE connection.
The name is the winning entry in an international student contest. Michael Puzio, a nine-year-old in North Carolina, suggested the name because he imagined the Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism (TAGSAM) arm and solar panels on OSIRIS-REx look like the like neck and wings in drawings of Bennu, which Egyptians usually depicted as a gray heron.
Michael is the son of cS member Larry Puzio (cS: lspooz)!
Congratulations Michael and Larry! Very nice to have an asteroid namer among our extended community!
lspooz Member
Posts: 56 From: Greensboro NC USA Registered: Aug 2012
posted 05-02-2013 09:11 AM
And thanks to collectSPACE, where I first found the link to NASA/Planetary Society's contest back on Labor Day.
Mike did just change his mind and announced that he DOESN'T want to be an astronaut BECAUSE he doesn't want to wear space diapers!
posted 05-01-2013 02:12 PM
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