Researcher Study: Bennu Asteroid Samples Consisting Of 'Purba' Material

Research studies reveal the origin of Samapel Bennu (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA The latest analytical results show the composition of the Bennu sample, the asteroid NASA collected through the OSIRIS-REx mission. Apparently, the sample is made of a unique and diverse pairing.

There are three recent scientific papers related to the Bennu sample. One paper published in Nature Astronomy notes that Bennu material comes from a variety of very remote places.

"We are tracing the origins of the initial material accumulated by Bennu's ancestors," said Ann Nguyen of NASA's Johnson Space Center. "We found stellar dust grains with compositions originating from before the solar system."

Ngunyen added that Bennu also consists of organic matter that may form in interstellar space. Research results also found high-temperature minerals formed near the Sun.

"All of these elements were carried away to a very long distance into the area where Bennu's progenitor asteroid was formed," Ngunyen explained. This finding shows that some primitive materials are able to survive the catastrophic collisions that destroy its parent asteroid.

Despite successfully escaping various chemical processes, most of the material in Bennu has undergone changes due to interacting with water. This was explained by Tom Zega, one of the researchers from the University of Arizona in a paper published in Nature Geoscience.

"(Bennu is) a sample that 80 percent consists of minerals containing water," Zega said. "We suspect the progenitor asteroid collects a lot of ice material from the outer solar system and then ... a little hot (appears) to dilute ice and causes the liquid to react with solids."

Bennu's transformation doesn't stop there. The third paper, which was also published in Nature Geoscience, found microscopic craters and melting rocks. These signs show that Bennu continues to be hit by micrometeorites.

Lindsay Keller of NASA Johnson said that, "Benu surface weathering occurs much faster than expected." This space weather, caused by collisions and the solar wind, has changed the asteroid's surface.