Tuesday, August 19, 2025

It's Official: Asteroids Ryugu and Bennu Are Siblings

SwRI scientists reviewed spectral data of sample material taken from near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu (pictured above) and compared them with spectral data of main belt asteroid Polana from the James Webb Space Telescope and found that they closely match. Image Credit: NASA

Some scientists thought that the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu were from the same family. Now that they have samples and JWST spectra from both, the verdict is in: They're both from the Polana collisional family, a diverse and widespread family of asteroids.



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