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(music throughout) After its discovery in 1999

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Our first hints of what asteroid Bennu looked like

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came from the Arecibo Observatory.

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Then, as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made its way to Bennu, the asteroid grew in detail 

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from a few tiny pixels to a surprisingly rugged world, littered with giant boulders.

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OSIRIS-REx arrived at the asteroid on December 3, 2018, and began 

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surveying the asteroid for the years leading up to the Touch-and-Go sample collection event

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The spacecraft discovered boulders the size of buildings, 

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and imaged the surface down to 5 centimeter per pixel resolution.

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While observing Bennu, we made some unexpected discoveries.  

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OSIRIS-REx spotted pieces of rocky ejecta bursting off Bennu and into space. 

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The spacecraft was able to observe the entire lifecycle of a natural satellite ejecting off an object,

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entering into orbit, and returning back to the surface. 

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OSIRIS-REx caught a glimpse of a black hole 30,000 light years away. 

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The discovery was made by an instrument about the size of a shoebox called REXIS

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the Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer.

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It detected X-rays radiating from a point off the asteroid’s edge. 

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OSIRIS-REx has imaged Bennu better than we have Earth and our own Moon. 

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Using this extremely high-resolution data, we have been able to create 

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stunning visualizations of the surface of the asteroid. 

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We used imagery from the Nightingale sample site to created a 360/VR visualization of the rugged terrain.

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Using an extensive catalogue of surface imagery, OSIRIS-REx 

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navigated itself autonomously down to the surface for sample collection. 

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It used software called Natural Feature Tracking to match up landmarks

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with its catalogue to ensure it was on the right track. 

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Approximately 200 million miles away from Earth,

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the spacecraft performed a series of burns to navigate itself to the rocky surface.

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At 6:08 pm eastern on October 20, 2020, 

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OSIRIS-REx successfully tagged sample site Nightingale within one meter of its targeted location

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The onboard cameras captured incredible footage of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) contacting the surface. 

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Imagery from SamCam showed rocks and dust overflowing from the TAGSAM head.

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The team is confident they’ve exceeded the mission requirement 

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of collecting at least 60 grams of material, and on October 29th, 2020, they stowed the sample for return to Earth.

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OSIRIS-REx imaged Bennu for the last time on April 7th, 2021 

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and departed the asteroid on May 10th on its two-year journey to deliver the sample to Earth.