Dramatically Lit Boulder at North Pole

Dramatically Lit Boulder at North Pole

This image shows a large boulder located near asteroid Bennu’s north pole. The image was captured at 6:00 a.m. Local Solar Time, resulting in long morning shadows cast to the left. The image was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on July 30, from a distance of 0.4 miles (0.7 km). The field of view is 32 ft (9.9 m). For scale, the thin, bright rock just above the boulder (upper left) is 2 ft (0.7 m) long, which is about the size of an osprey. The image was obtained during the mission’s Orbital B phase. When the image was taken, the spacecraft was over the northern hemisphere, pointing PolyCam nearly straight down.

Date Taken: July 30, 2019

Instrument Used: OCAMS (PolyCam)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

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Dramatically Lit Boulder at North Pole

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