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.

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.