Definition
(101955) Bennu (formerly designated as 1999 RQ36) is a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid (NEA) with a diameter of ~500 m. The orbit of Bennu is potentially hazardous for the Earth with an estimated cumulative impact probability of 3.7 10−4 for an impact on the Earth until the end of the next century. The bulk density of the asteroid is 1,260 ± 70 kg m−3, and the disk-averaged thermal inertia is 310 ± 70 J m−2 K−1 s−1/2 which is significantly lower compared to other NEAs. These values suggest a rubble pile internal structure covered by regolith with a typical grain size of the order of a few mm to 1 cm.
(101955) Bennu is the target of the NASA space mission OSIRIS-REx which is scheduled for launch in 2016 and shall return a sample of the asteroid to the Earth in 2023.
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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Knollenberg, J. (2015). RQ36. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44185-5_5212
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44185-5_5212
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