For a few months, NASA is concentrating on the asteroid Bennu and at present, the space agency is on the mission to collect samples from the space rock. At the same time, the agency has taken efforts in stitching together the images taken of the asteroid by our satellite and wanted to project with the entire detailed map of its surface.
The space agency has taken many measures to take the pictures of the asteroid Bennu from March to April 2019 and put together to produce one single image of the asteroid. Recently, they have shown the mosaic image that was made of 2,155 Polycom photos, which shows the image of the incredible rock n detail with two inches per pixel clarity. And probably this would be the first time taken by the space about the asteroid that was mapped this clear.
The spacecraft OSIRIS-REx photographed the asteroid from the distance of about 3.1 to 5 km away from the rock’s surface. The view is further utilized by the mission team to collect the samples while choosing the site for sampling. The images of the asteroid Bennu are available online for the space enthusiasts to download free.
By this summer, the space agency is expecting to try and touch the surface of Bennu using the spacecraft for the first time. The spacecraft will then collect samples and leave. Since the arrival of spacecraft is late, they hit a setback as the surface of the asteroid is covered by large boulders. Further, the team has figured out a new method to navigate the rock’s surface using Nature Feature Tracking.