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NASA probe creates history as it slips into orbit around asteroid Bennu, breaks double record

Washington, Jan 2: A space probe of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, called Osiris-Rex has gone into orbit around an ancient asteroid. It marked the closest ever orbit of the smallest ever celestial object.

Now, the spacecraft will circle Bennu about a mile (1.75 kilometers) from its center, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study.

NASA probe creates history as it slips into orbit around asteroid Bennu, breaks double record

Previously the closest orbit of a planetary body was in May 2016, when the Rosetta spacecraft orbited about four miles (seven kilometers) from the center of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.)

The comfortable distance is necessary to keep the spacecraft locked to Bennu, which has a gravity force only 5-millionths as strong as Earth's. The spacecraft is scheduled to orbit Bennu through mid-February at a leisurely 62 hours per orbit.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission has gone rather smoothly since setting off on an Atlas V rocket in September 2016. It then spent a year in orbit around the Sun before leveraging the Earth's gravity to slingshot into space for its faraway encounter.

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