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Spacecraft missions have observed regolith blankets of unconsolidated subcentimetre particles on stony asteroids1–3. Telescopic data have suggested the presence of regolith blankets also on carbonaceous asteroids, including (101955) Bennu4 and (162173) Ryugu5. However, despite observations of processes that are capable of comminuting boulders into unconsolidated materials, such as meteoroid bombardment6,7 and thermal cracking8, Bennu and Ryugu lack extensive areas covered in subcentimetre particles7,9. Here we report an inverse correlation between the local abundance of subcentimetre particles and the porosity of rocks on Bennu. We interpret this finding to mean that accumulation of unconsolidated subcentimetre particles is frustrated where the rocks are highly porous, which appears to be most of the surface10. The highly porous rocks are compressed rather than fragmented by meteoroid impacts, consistent with laboratory experiments11,12, and thermal cracking proceeds more slowly than in denser rocks. We infer that regolith blankets are uncommon on carbonaceous asteroids, which are the most numerous type of asteroid13. By contrast, these terrains should be common on stony asteroids, which have less porous rocks and are the second-most populous group by composition13. The higher porosity of carbonaceous asteroid materials may have aided in their compaction and cementation to form breccias, which dominate the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites14. The absence of fine regolith on the asteroid Bennu is due to the high porosity of its rocks, which compress rather than fragment after impacts and exhibit slow thermal cracking.

Rock breakdown due to diurnal thermal cycling has been hypothesized to drive boulder degradation and regolith production on airless bodies. Numerous studies have invoked its importance in driving landscape evolution, yet morphological features produced by thermal fracture processes have never been definitively observed on an airless body, or any surface where other weathering mechanisms may be ruled out. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission provides an opportunity to search for evidence of thermal breakdown and assess its significance on asteroid surfaces. Here we show boulder morphologies observed on Bennu that are consistent with terrestrial observations and models of fatigue-driven exfoliation and demonstrate how crack propagation via thermal stress can lead to their development. The rate and expression of this process will vary with asteroid composition and location, influencing how different bodies evolve and their apparent relative surface ages from space weathering and cratering records., In their study, the authors discuss the potential of thermal weathering on airless bodies. As a case study, they use boulder and fracture morphologies on asteroid Bennu.

We analyzed high-angular rate streaks first recorded by OSIRIS-REx’s MapCam during a 2017 search for Earth Trojan asteroids. We interpret them as water-ice particles that translated across the imager’s field of view, originating from the spacecraft itself. Their translation velocities approximated 0.1–1 m/s based on reasonable conclusions about their range. Pursuing several lines of investigation to seek a coherent hypothesis, we conclude that the episodic releases of the water ice particles are associated with spacecraft attitudes that resulted in solar illumination of previously shadowed regions. This correlation suggests that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft itself possesses micro-climatic zones consisting of hot regions and cold traps that may temporarily potentially pass volatiles back and forth before losing most of them.

International audience; We manually mapped particles ranging in longest axis from 0.3 cm to 95 m on (101955) Bennu for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) asteroid sample return mission. This enabled the mission to identify candidate sample collection sites and shed light on the processes that have shaped the surface of this rubble-pile asteroid. Building on a global survey of particles, we used higher-resolution data from regional observations to calculate particle size-frequency distributions (PSFDs) and assess the viability of four candidate sites for sample collection (presence of unobstructed particles ≤ 2 cm). The four candidate sites have common characteristics: each is situated within a crater with a relative abundance of sampleable material. Their PSFDs, however, indicate that each site has experienced different geologic processing. The PSFD power-law slopes range from −3.0 ± 0.2 to −2.3 ± 0.1 across the four sites, based on images with a 0.01-m pixel scale. These values are consistent with, or shallower than, the global survey measurements. At one site, Osprey, the particle packing density appears to reach geometric saturation. We evaluate the uncertainty in these measurements and discuss their implications for other remotely sensed and mapped particles, and their importance to OSIRIS-REx sampling operations.

The complex history of Bennu's surface The near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu is a carbon-rich body with a rubble pile structure, formed from debris ejected by an impact on a larger parent asteroid. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is designed to collect a sample of Bennu's surface and return it to Earth. After arriving at Bennu, OSIRIS-REx performed a detailed survey of the asteroid and reconnaissance of potential sites for sample collection. Three papers present results from those mission phases. DellaGiustina et al. mapped the optical color and albedo of Bennu's surface and established how they relate to boulders and impact craters, finding complex evolution caused by space weathering processes. Simon et al. analyzed near-infrared spectra, finding evidence for organic and carbonate materials that are widely distributed across the surface but are most concentrated on individual boulders. Kaplan et al. examined more detailed data collected on the primary sample site, called Nightingale. They identified bright veins with a distinct infrared spectrum in some boulders, which they interpreted as being carbonates formed by aqueous alteration on the parent asteroid. Together, these results constrain Bennu's evolution and provide context for the sample collected in October 2020. Science , this issue p. eabc3660 , p. eabc3522 , p. eabc3557

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An asteroid’s history is determined in large part by its strength against collisions with other objects1,2 (impact strength). Laboratory experiments on centimetre-scale meteorites3 have been extrapolated and buttressed with numerical simulations to derive the impact strength at the asteroid scale4,5. In situ evidence of impacts on boulders on airless planetary bodies has come from Apollo lunar samples6 and images of the asteroid (25143) Itokawa7. It has not yet been possible, however, to assess directly the impact strength, and thus the absolute surface age, of the boulders that constitute the building blocks of a rubble-pile asteroid. Here we report an analysis of the size and depth of craters observed on boulders on the asteroid (101955) Bennu. We show that the impact strength of metre-sized boulders is 0.44 to 1.7 megapascals, which is low compared to that of solid terrestrial materials. We infer that Bennu’s metre-sized boulders record its history of impact by millimetre- to centimetre-scale objects in near-Earth space. We conclude that this population of near-Earth impactors has a size frequency distribution similar to that of metre-scale bolides and originates from the asteroidal population. Our results indicate that Bennu has been dynamically decoupled from the main asteroid belt for 1.75 ± 0.75 million years. Analysis of the size and depth of craters on boulders on the asteroid (101955) Bennu indicates that Bennu has been in near-Earth space for 1.75 ± 0.75 million years.

The complex history of Bennu's surface The near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu is a carbon-rich body with a rubble pile structure, formed from debris ejected by an impact on a larger parent asteroid. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is designed to collect a sample of Bennu's surface and return it to Earth. After arriving at Bennu, OSIRIS-REx performed a detailed survey of the asteroid and reconnaissance of potential sites for sample collection. Three papers present results from those mission phases. DellaGiustina et al. mapped the optical color and albedo of Bennu's surface and established how they relate to boulders and impact craters, finding complex evolution caused by space weathering processes. Simon et al. analyzed near-infrared spectra, finding evidence for organic and carbonate materials that are widely distributed across the surface but are most concentrated on individual boulders. Kaplan et al. examined more detailed data collected on the primary sample site, called Nightingale. They identified bright veins with a distinct infrared spectrum in some boulders, which they interpreted as being carbonates formed by aqueous alteration on the parent asteroid. Together, these results constrain Bennu's evolution and provide context for the sample collected in October 2020. Science , this issue p. eabc3660 , p. eabc3522 , p. eabc3557

The principal objective of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is to retrieve a sample of the asteroid (101955) Bennu and return it to Earth. OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu in December 2018. Images of the asteroid by the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS) were photogrammetrically controlled to produce a global basemap and site-specific image mosaics essential to the selection of a primary and backup sample site, which were announced in December 2019. In the control process, OCAMS images were registered to shape models created from OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA) data and from the process of stereophotoclinometry. This paper summarizes the photogrammetric control to date of images collected at Bennu. We briefly review the mission and the OCAMS imaging sensors. We then describe the photogrammetric control process for the global mapping campaign and targeted reconnaissance surveys of candidate sample sites. Finally, we discuss ongoing and future work.

The OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program and is the first U.S. mission to return samples from an asteroid to Earth. The most important decision ahead of the OSIRIS-REx team is the selection of a prime sample-site on the surface of asteroid (101955) Bennu. Mission success hinges on identifying a site that is safe and has regolith that can readily be ingested by the spacecraft's sampling mechanism. To inform this mission-critical decision, the surface of Bennu is mapped using the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite and the images are used to develop several foundational data products. Acquiring the necessary inputs to these data products requires observational strategies that are defined specifically to overcome the challenges associated with mapping a small irregular body. We present these strategies in the context of assessing candidate sample-sites at Bennu according to a framework of decisions regarding the relative safety, sampleability, and scientific value across the asteroid's surface. To create data products that aid these assessments, we describe the best practices developed by the OSIRIS-REx team for image-based mapping of irregular small bodies. We emphasize the importance of using 3D shape models and the ability to work in body-fixed rectangular coordinates when dealing with planetary surfaces that cannot be uniquely addressed by body-fixed latitude and longitude.

We present a regional photometric analysis of asteroid (101955) Bennu, using image data from the MapCam color imager of the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS). This analysis follows the previously reported global photometric analysis of Bennu, which found that Bennu’s roughness was difficult to photometrically model owing to unresolved surface variation. Here we find that, even with a high-resolution shape model (20 cm per facet) and automatic image registration (

INTRODUCTION Active asteroids are small bodies in the Solar System that show ongoing mass loss, such as the ejection of dust, which may be caused by large impacts, volatile release, or rotational acceleration. Studying them informs our understanding of the evolution and destruction of asteroids and the origin of volatile materials such as water on Earth. The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft has rendezvoused with the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu. The selection of Bennu as the OSIRIS-REx target was partially based on its spectral similarity to some active asteroids. Observations designed to detect mass loss at Bennu were conducted from Earth and during the spacecraft’s approach, but no signs of asteroid activity were found. However, when the spacecraft entered orbit in January 2019, we serendipitously observed particles in the vicinity of Bennu that had apparently been ejected from its surface. RATIONALE We analyzed the properties and behavior of particles ejected from Bennu to determine the possible mechanisms of ejection and provide understanding of the broader population of active asteroids. Images obtained by the spacecraft indicate multiple discrete ejection events with a range of energies and resultant particle trajectories. We characterized three large ejection events that respectively occurred on 6 January, 19 January, and 11 February 2019. Tracking of individual particles across multiple images by means of optical navigation techniques provided the initial conditions for orbit determination modeling. By combining these approaches, we estimated the locations and times of ejection events and determined initial velocity vectors of particles. We estimated the particle sizes and the minimum energies of the ejection events using a particle albedo and density consistent with observations of Bennu. RESULTS Particles with diameters from 3 m s–1. Estimated energies ranged from 270 mJ for the 6 January event to 8 mJ for the 11 February event. The three events arose from widely separated sites, which do not show any obvious geological distinction from the rest of Bennu’s surface. However, these events all occurred in the late afternoon, between about 15:00 and 18:00 local solar time. In addition to discrete ejection events, we detected a persistent background of particles in the Bennu environment. Some of these background particles have been observed to persist on temporary orbits that last several days—in one case, with a semimajor axis >1 km. The orbital characteristics of these gravitationally bound objects make it possible to determine the ratio of their cross-sectional area to their mass. Combined with their photometric phase functions, this information constrains the parameter space of the particles’ diameters, densities, and albedos. CONCLUSION Plausible mechanisms for the large ejection events include thermal fracturing, volatile release through dehydration of phyllosilicates, and meteoroid impacts. The late-afternoon timing of the events is consistent with any of these mechanisms. Bennu’s boulder geology indicates that thermal fracturing, perhaps enhanced by volatile release, could occur on the asteroid surface. Smaller events, especially those that occur on the night side of Bennu, could be attributable to reimpacting particles. Our observations classify Bennu as an active asteroid. Active asteroids are commonly identified by major mass loss events observable with telescopes, on scales much greater than we observed at Bennu. Our findings indicate that there is a continuum of mass loss event magnitudes among active asteroids.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at its sampling target, asteroid (101955) Bennu, in December 2018 and started a series of global observation campaigns. Here we investigate the global photometric properties of Bennu as observed by the OSIRIS-REx Visible and InfraRed Spectrometer (OVIRS) over the time period December 9, 2018, to September 26, 2019. In this study we used observations obtained over wavelengths ranging from 0.4 to 3.7 μm, with a solar phase angle range of 5.3° to 132.6°. Our aim is to characterize the global average disk-resolved photometric properties of Bennu with multiple models. The best-fit model is a McEwen model with an exponential phase function and an exponential polynomial partition function. We use this model to correct the OVIRS spectra of Bennu to a standard reference viewing and illumination geometry at visible to infrared wavelengths for the purposes of global spectral mapping. We derive a bolometric Bond albedo map in which Bennu's surface values range from 0.021 to 0.027. We find a phase reddening effect, and our model is effective at removing this phase reddening. Our average model albedo shows a blueish spectrum with a > 10% absorption feature centered at 2.74 μm. Of all comparisons with previously visited asteroids and comets, only 28P/Neujmin, 2P/Encke, and (162173) Ryugu are darker than Bennu. We find that Bennu is a few percent brighter than Ryugu in the wavelengths respectively observed by the OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 missions (from 0.48 to 0.86 μm). We also compare our spectroscopic photometry of Bennu with the OSIRIS-REx imaging photometry and with ground-based predictions.

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) is a NASA mission to return a sample of asteroid (101955) Bennu. Photometric modeling of Bennu's surface is a key element of both sample site characterization and our broader scientific understanding of the asteroid. Bennu's heterogeneous surface presents substantial variation in reflectance and produces a scattered dataset that poses a challenge to photometric modeling. We show that the resolution of the shape model with which we calculate photometric angles strongly affects the accuracy of the analysis, as well as the efficacy of subsequent photometric corrections. We use global imaging data to fit empirical photometric models of the surface. These models represent the average behavior of Bennu's surface and can be used beyond this work to photometrically correct panchromatic and color basemaps of Bennu and perform albedo analyses of individual features on Bennu's surface. Bennu's global photometry reveals a moderate opposition effect and detectable phase reddening, both of which suggest a macroscopically rough surface, which is confirmed by centimeter-scale images of the asteroid.

We present a near-global normal albedo map of asteroid (101955) Bennu, created using images from the PolyCam imager onboard the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. PolyCam acquired high-resolution images (nadir pixel scale of ~6.25 cm/pixel) of the surface from the equator to mid-latitudes (~ ± 50°) at a low phase angle (~8°). We applied specialized charge smear and radiometric correction to the data to compensate for image artifacts stemming from very short exposure times. We photogrammetrically controlled the images to shape model tiles with a 5-cm ground sample distance to register the images to each other and to ground. Variations in albedo on Bennu's globally dark surface (median albedo of 0.046 ± 0.002) are associated with clusters of dark and bright boulders, as well as a much sparser population of meter-scale boulders with very high reflectances (albedo >0.10). Accordingly, Bennu has a relatively broad albedo-frequency distribution (~25% full width at half maximum) with a long tail toward higher values. Owing to the distribution of the dark boulders and boulder clusters, the southern hemisphere of Bennu is darker than the northern hemisphere; this hemispheric dichotomy varies with longitude, resulting in a large-scale diagonal pattern in albedo across the full disk of Bennu.

In the version of this Article originally published, in the sentence “There are three identified boulders with long axes exceeding 40 m and more than 200 boulders larger than 10 m”, the term “10 m” should have been “10 m (ref.)”. This has now been corrected.