Scientists are getting a clearer look at asteroid Bennu, and they’re doing it without grinding up or damaging the precious material that came back to Earth.
In a newly shared set of images, NASA researchers used X-ray computed tomography to peer inside two small particles collected from Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx mission. The scans revealed networks of fine cracks running through the rocks. That might sound like a small detail, but it helps answer a long-standing puzzle about Bennu’s “thermal inertia” — basically, how fast its surface warms up and cools down as it turns in sunlight.
The crack patterns support the idea that Bennu’s material is more fragile and porous than it can look from the outside. That matters because scientists use heat measurements from telescopes to estimate what asteroids are made of. If cracking changes how an asteroid handles heat, then these real, lab-based scans help make those remote measurements more trustworthy.
It’s also a reminder of what makes sample-return missions special. OSIRIS-REx brought Bennu material back to Earth in September 2023, and now researchers can use powerful tools in controlled labs to study the early solar system in detail — right down to the inside of individual grains.