BIO
Dante Lauretta
Lauretta is a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He is also the principal investigator of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) mission. He received a BS in physics and mathematics and a BA in oriental studies, with a focus in Japanese, from the University of Arizona in 1993, and a PhD in Earth and planetary sciences from Washington University in St Louis in 1997. Lauretta is the recipient of the 2002 Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society and the 1995 Nininger Meteorite Award.
OSIRIS-REx is about to deliver a piece of asteroid Bennu to Earth on 24 September. The mission launched in 2016 and spent two-and-a-half years studying Bennu from orbit. How much has the mission changed our understanding of asteroids?
OSIRIS-REx rendezvoused with asteroid Bennu in December 2018, and right away I knew that we were in for a real challenge. Even though we had done an extensive astronomical campaign to characterise this asteroid, we really had some major surprises. Most importantly, when we looked at the thermal data, the asteroid surface heats up
