Boulder at Sunrise

This image shows the face of a boulder located near asteroid Bennu’s south pole. Because it was captured near the south pole at 6:00 am Local Solar Time, the shadows of nearby boulders are very prominent. The image was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on July 29, from a distance of 0.4 miles (0.7 km). The field of view is 31 ft (9.4 m). For scale, the left edge of the boulder’s face is 12 ft (3.8 m) long, which is about the length of a male tiger. The image was obtained during the mission’s Orbital B phase. When the image was taken, the spacecraft was over the southern hemisphere, pointing PolyCam nearly straight down.

Date Taken: July 29, 2019

Instrument Used: OCAMS (PolyCam)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

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Boulder at Sunrise

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