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in late 2018 as nasa's osiris-rex

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spacecraft neared its target bennu the

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asteroid grew in detail from a few tiny

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pixels to an incredibly high resolution

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image osiris-rex confirmed the

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asteroid's basic shape which was

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originally observed in 1999 by

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ground-based radar at arcebo observatory

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what scientists didn't expect was just

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how rough and boulder-filled the

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asteroid would turn out to be while it

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can be difficult to fully grasp bennu's

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unfamiliar surface it's helpful to

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understand the scale of what you're

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seeing here in this image the brightest

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boulder is the length of a horse

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and the large boulder in this image is

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the width of a soccer field

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another challenge for the mission is the

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asteroid's small size and weak gravity

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this means that osiris-rex needs to fly

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daringly close to the surface in order

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to enter into orbit

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with its orbital a phase osiris-rex

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successfully entered the closest ever

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orbit for a spacecraft

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setting a guinness world record in the

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process

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then

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six months later it beat its own record

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during its orbital v phase and

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approached to within a few hundred

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meters of the rocky surface because

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osiris-rex flew so closely over the

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surface during orbital b the team was

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able to map the topography and shape of

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bennu better than we have our own moon

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in addition to mapping asteroid bennu

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osiris-rex plans to collect and return a

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sample back to earth to do that the

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spacecraft will carefully tag the

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surface of bennu the osiris-rex team has

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selected four possible sample sites for

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the mission osprey kingfisher

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nightingale

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and sandpiper

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the spacecraft has been closely imaging

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these sites from different angles to

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select the best touchdown spot for

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ranks

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what was originally envisioned as a

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smooth and easy touchdown on bennu

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surface has become a complex endeavor to

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tag a small crowded space on the

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asteroid an area no larger than a few

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parking spots by

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mid-2020

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the osiris-rex team has already pushed

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the boundaries of scientific exploration

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going from ground-based radar images all

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the way to being a few hundred meters

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from the asteroid surface and is now