{"id":121977,"date":"2020-11-15T02:06:30","date_gmt":"2020-11-15T02:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/archive\/asteroid-bennu-the-storyteller\/"},"modified":"2020-11-15T02:06:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T02:06:30","slug":"asteroid-bennu-the-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/asteroid-bennu-the-storyteller\/","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid Bennu, the Storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nasa.tumblr.com\/post\/632888421468258304\/asteroid-bennu-the-storyteller\" class=\"tumblr_blog\">nasa<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Asteroids are the storytellers of our solar system\u2019s youth. They are the closest we can get to the original material that makes up the sun, planets, and moons.<\/p>\n<p>This week, our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/osiris-rex\">OSIRIS-REx<\/a> spacecraft made history when it touched a pristine, ancient asteroid named Bennu to collect a sample from the surface. The intrepid spacecraft will now bring the asteroid sample \u2013 and its stories \u2013 back home to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Why is it that asteroid Bennu holds the history of our origins? Let\u2019s go back to the beginning\u2026<\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"711\" data-orig-height=\"400\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/55bab55e6f18f7169a29c2770d6a5047\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-51\/s540x810\/52a7f41f36990f386755a13f1e78ab504a31abae.gif\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"711\" data-orig-height=\"400\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>About 4.5 billion years ago, our solar system began as a spinning, swirling cloud made up of tiny bits of gaseous and rocky material. Most of that material \u2013 more than 99% of it \u2013 gathered in the center and went on to become the Sun. <\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/5c6f9f8681738a257bf9a37540272392\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-61\/s540x810\/ecfa654de4a27416e349df33ff1fcdded113e4c6.gif\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>The leftovers began to spin around the Sun, colliding into one another and forming larger and larger objects, eventually becoming planets, dwarf planets, and moons.<\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"806\" data-orig-height=\"453\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/eb2437ab3a01a2b1b22828e7276359c2\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-09\/s540x810\/898c20e6ea79173c0eef09fdbbe795bb8b04a68d.png\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"806\" data-orig-height=\"453\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>But asteroids didn\u2019t become part of planets or moons. So, while the material in planets and moons were superheated and altered during the formation of the solar system and weathered by geologic processes over time, asteroids remained pristine.<\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/80de38f2aa5f705cdbf91f71978b372c\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-fd\/s540x810\/9323bcf791f87031e0c35e96fc3313eb16f90be3.gif\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Each asteroid holds knowledge from that special time in our solar system\u2019s history. Each one contains information about the chemicals, minerals, and molecules that were present when the solar system was just starting to form.<\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/5da7805fe1097f1fcd930cbe4746ad47\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-26\/s540x810\/950073ca7a2d9ef55c738895782b7f08e9a7b01f.gif\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"640\" data-orig-height=\"360\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>With missions like OSIRIS-REx, we are going on a journey to these ancient worlds, seeking to learn what they remember, seeking to expand our knowledge, and deepen our understanding of our origins.<\/p>\n<figure data-orig-width=\"768\" data-orig-height=\"432\" class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/64.media.tumblr.com\/189ac4af7c95cf5ae640f1c7d6af678e\/0c9076e43ef4ca6d-20\/s540x810\/988eecd5535b2546cd0eedc506f6ab1875d2726e.gif\" alt=\"image\" data-orig-width=\"768\" data-orig-height=\"432\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><i>Learn more about the OSIRIS-REx mission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/osiris-rex\">HERE<\/a>, or follow the mission on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OSIRISREx\/\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OSIRISREx\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/osiris_rex\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: <a href=\"http:\/\/nasa.tumblr.com\">http:\/\/nasa.tumblr.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>nasa: Asteroids are the storytellers of our solar system\u2019s youth. They are the closest we can get to the original material that makes up the sun, planets, and moons. This week, our OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made history when it touched a pristine, ancient asteroid named Bennu to collect a sample from the surface. The intrepid spacecraft [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1443,1440,1338,1439,1445,1450,1438],"class_list":["post-121977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-1443","tag-aesthetic","tag-archive","tag-futurized","tag-november","tag-u2d","tag-united-twosday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/united-tuesday.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}