The operational environment and rotational acceleration of asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx observations

During its approach to asteroid (101955) Bennu, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft surveyed Bennu’s immediate environment, photometric properties, and rotation state. Discovery of a dusty environment, a natural sate...

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Published in:Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1291 - 10
Main Authors: Shelly, F. C., Howell, E. S., Fornasier, S., Golish, D. R., Scheeres, D. J., Small, J., Hanna, K.L. Donaldson, Warren, T., Millington-Veloza, S., Allen, B., McGraw, L., Johnson, C.L., Susorney, H.C.M., Hanna, R.D., Ciceri, F., Glotch, T., Thomas, C.A., Tachibana, S., Epifani, E. Mazzotta, Crombie, M.K., Izawa, M.R.M., Licandro, J., Chesley, S.R., Elder, C.M., Corvin, M., Leonard, J.M., Lessac-Chenen, E., Levine, A., Page, B., Wolff, P., Hayne, P., Deshapriya, J.D.P., Bierhaus, E.B., Buck, B., Church, E., Coltrin, M., Deguzman, A., Ellis, D., Fisher, A., Freund, S., Gonzales, S., Haas, P., Hasten, A., Hilbert, A., Mario, C., Miller, C., Mirfakhrai, A., Skeen, M., Ballouz, R.-L., Bandrowski, R., Bennett, C.A., Brodbeck, J., Chojnacki, M., Colpo, A., DellaGiustina, D.N., Enos, R., Ferro, T., Fisher, M.R., Hammond, D., Harshman, K., Herzog, K., Janakus, A., Munoz, R., Polit, A., Ramos, N., Tang, Y.H., Westermann, M., Hagee, W., Hill, J., Piacentine, N., Sandford, S. A., Barker, M., Emr, C., Fennell, D., Folta, D., Hyde, K., Ingegneri, A., Jones, N., Liounis, A., Lorentson, C., Moore, W., Moreau, M., Rieger, S., Morris, M., Nakamura-Messenger, K., Dill, K., Molaro, J.L., Zou, X.-D., French, A.S., Jawin, E.R., Killgore, M., Chodas, M., Freemantle, J., Craft, K., Nair, A.H., Perry, M.E., Roberts, J.H., Manzoni, C., May, B.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Goddard Space Flight Center Nature Research 19.03.2019
Nature Publishing Group UK
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Subjects:
639/33/445/847
639/33/445/848
Apollo asteroids
Asteroid missions
Asteroids
Astrophysics
Celestial bodies
Engineering Sciences
Geosciences (General)
Humanities and Social Sciences
Instrumentation
Materials
multidisciplinary
Natural satellites
Photometry
Physics
Regolith
Rotation
Satellites
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Spacecraft
Rings and moons
Asteroids
Comets and Kuiper belt
ISSN:2041-1723, 2041-1723
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Summary:During its approach to asteroid (101955) Bennu, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft surveyed Bennu’s immediate environment, photometric properties, and rotation state. Discovery of a dusty environment, a natural satellite, or unexpected asteroid characteristics would have had consequences for the mission’s safety and observation strategy. Here we show that spacecraft observations during this period were highly sensitive to satellites (sub-meter scale) but reveal none, although later navigational images indicate that further investigation is needed. We constrain average dust production in September 2018 from Bennu’s surface to an upper limit of 150 g/s averaged over 34 min. Bennu’s disk-integrated photometric phase function validates measurements from the pre-encounter astronomical campaign. We demonstrate that Bennu’s rotation rate is accelerating continuously at 3.63 ± 0.52 × 10^(–6) degrees/sq. day, likely due to the Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) effect, with evolutionary implications.
Bibliography:GSFC
Goddard Space Flight Center
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SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-019-09213-x