101955 Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group discovered by the LINEAR Project on 11 September 1999. It is a potentially hazardous object that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table and tied for the highest cumulative rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale. It has a cumulative 1-in-1,800 chance of impacting Earth between 2178 and 2290 with the greatest risk being on 24 September 2182. It is named after the Bennu, the ancient Egyptian mythological bird associated with the Sun, creation, and rebirth.

101955 Bennu has a mean diameter of 490 m (1,610 ft; 0.30 mi) and has been observed extensively with the Arecibo Observatory planetary radar and the Goldstone Deep Space Network. Bennu was the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission which is intended to return its samples to Earth in 2023 for further study. On 3 December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at Bennu after a two-year journey. It orbited the asteroid and mapped out Bennu's surface in detail, seeking potential sample collection sites. Analysis of the orbits allowed calculation of Bennu's mass and its distribution.

On 18 June 2019, NASA announced that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft had closed in and captured an image from a distance of 600 metres (2,000 ft) from Bennu's surface. In October 2020, OSIRIS-REx successfully touched down on the surface of Bennu, collected a sample using an extendable arm, secured the sample and prepared for a return trip to Earth. On 10 May 2021, OSIRIS-REx successfully completed its departure from the Bennu asteroid while still carrying the sample of the asteroid rubble.

Astrometric observations between 1999 and 2013 have demonstrated that 101955 Bennu is influenced by the Yarkovsky effect, causing the semimajor axis of its orbit to drift on average by 284±1.5 meters/year. Analysis of the gravitational and thermal effects has given a bulk density of ρ = 1190±13 kg/m3, which is only slightly denser than water. Therefore, the predicted macroporosity is 40±10%, suggesting the interior has a rubble pile structure or even hollows. The estimated mass is (7.329±0.009)×1010 kg.

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  • LoudMuffin [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    i don't like to talk about this because these memories feel important to me in a dumb way but man I miss highschool not because it was personally a good time for me (better in some ways, worse in some I guess) but I really really miss some (technically just like two or three) people I knew from back then and I think frequently of what could have been if I was less shy/less broke/less of everything

    I feel like there was so much freedom and potential at that time that I didn't really get to experience for various reasons and I feel like adult life is just pure drudgery and it's incredibly difficult to feel excited about anything when almost everything in society feels engineered to subordinate you to the valorization process of capital

    and like I'm honestly I'm kind of a fucking burnout minus the drugs, I've been in college for literally almost a decade now and bouncing between crappy jobs getting shitted on just because I just can't find myself to care about what I'm working on when I know intimately how badly I'm getting screwed, it feels bad knowing you don't really fit in

    I kinda wish I was some normie slopping up my mass media slop, developing some false consciousness, investing in crypto, etc.

    And I know the real reason most people aren't as vocal/a pain in the ass is because they're scared/not as fucking literally crazy as I am so this isn't really to malign normies but it's still just frustrating being able to see so many problems and being completely unable to ignore them

    maybe I need some friends, but I honestly kinda hate everyone except for like the 2 or 3 people I miss all the time but honestly? HONESTLY? I would probably hate them too given enough time.

    The point is I'm off mah nut.

    I'm probably getting fired from my job tomorrow lmfao