Nearly two years in the past, NASA made historical past when its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly to gather a regolith pattern from the floor of the asteroid. While the mission received’t return to Earth , NASA shared new details about the celestial physique. In an printed this week (by way of ), the company revealed OSIRIS-REx would have sunk into Bennu had the spacecraft not instantly fired its thrusters after touching the asteroid’s floor.

“It turns out that the particles making up Bennu’s exterior are so loosely packed and lightly bound to each other that if a person were to step onto Bennu they would feel very little resistance, as if stepping into a pit of plastic balls that are popular play areas for kids,” NASA mentioned.

That’s not what scientists thought they’d discover on Bennu. Observing the asteroid from Earth, the expectation was that its floor can be lined in clean, sandy beach-like materials. Bennu’s response to OSIRIS-REx’s landing additionally had scientists puzzled. After briefly interacting with the asteroid, the spacecraft left a 26-foot (8-meter) extensive crater. In lab testing, the pickup process “barely made a divot.” 

After analyzing knowledge from the spacecraft, they discovered it encountered the identical quantity of resistance an individual on Earth would really feel whereas squeezing the plunger on a French press espresso carafe. “By the time we fired our thrusters to leave the surface, we were still plunging into the asteroid,” mentioned Ron Ballouz, a scientist with the OSIRIS-REx staff.

According to NASA, its findings on Bennu might assist scientists higher interpret distant observations of different asteroids. In flip, that might assist the company design future asteroid missions. “I think we’re still at the beginning of understanding what these bodies are, because they behave in very counterintuitive ways,” mentioned OSIRIS-REx staff member Patrick Michel.