Angled View of Gargoyle Saxum

This image shows an angled view of one of the darkest boulders on asteroid Bennu, called Gargoyle Saxum. The boulder, located near the asteroid’s equator, has an albedo of 3.3%. The image was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on April 5 from a distance of 1.7 miles (2.8 km). The field of view is 131 ft (40 m). For scale, the small, light-colored rock sitting on Gargoyle is 6.2 ft (1.9 m) long, which is about the height of a person. The image was obtained during Flyby 5B of the mission’s Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond phase. When the image was taken, the spacecraft was over the southern hemisphere, pointing PolyCam north and west.

Date Taken: April 5, 2019

Instrument Used: OCAMS (PolyCam)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

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Angled View of Gargoyle Saxum

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