- American Astronomical Society’s 240th Meeting: Plenary Lecture Building the Future of Radio Science with the Arecibo Observatory by Dr. Héctor Arce. 28 Jul, 2022
- TRENDS 202227 Jul, 2022
- Advancing IDEA in Planetary Science 27 Jul, 2022
- The Arecibo Observatory: An Engine for Science and Scientists in Puerto Rico and Beyond27 Jul, 2022
- Cryogenic Frontend work for the 12m telescope entering phase II21 Jul, 2022
- A Parkes “Murriyang” Search for Pulsars and Fast Transients in the Large Magellanic Cloud 11 Jul, 2022
- A Comparison of Multiphase Magnetic Field Tracers in a High Galactic Latitude Region of the Filamentary Interstellar Medium 11 Jul, 2022
- The First Observation of Additional Ionospheric Layers Over Arecibo Using an Incoherent Scatter Radar11 Jul, 2022
- Decoding the star forming properties of gas-rich galaxy pairs11 Jul, 2022
- Crater Ejecta Across Maxwell Montes, Venus, and Possible Effects on Future Rock Type Measurements 11 Jul, 2022
- On Single-pulse Energies of Some Bright Pulsars Observed at 1.7 GHz11 Jul, 2022
- Probing the Local Interstellar Medium with Scintillometry of the Bright Pulsar B1133 + 16 11 Jul, 2022
- Arecibo Celebrates National Engineers Week 06 Apr, 2022
- The Arecibo Observatory at the Upcoming 240th American Astronomical Society Meeting06 Apr, 2022
- The Arecibo Observatory Survey Salvage Committee Report06 Apr, 2022
- Facilities and Operations Update06 Apr, 2022
Sharing the Connection: Arecibo’s Planetary Radar & NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission to Bennu
Byadmin10 September 2020 Planetary
Arecibo Radar images of the asteroid (101955) Bennu and the physical model of the asteroid developed from those images.

On September 2nd, Dr. Michael Nolan presented a Solar System Ambassadors and Museum Alliance Professional Development Training Webinar titled “Twenty Years of Bennu: From Arecibo to Orbit (and Home Again).”
The webinar highlighted the importance of the Arecibo Observatory for characterizing the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu, the target of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. The spacecraft, currently in orbit around Bennu, is slated to pick up a sample of the asteroid next month and send the piece back to Earth by September 2023.
Dr. Nolan is the Science Team Chief of the OSIRIS-REx mission and a Research Professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He worked at the Arecibo Observatory for twenty years, from 1995 - 2015, and served as the Head of Planetary Radar program and the Observatory Director.
“Whenever I give a talk about Bennu, I like to give my own personal perspective, which begins at Arecibo,” Dr. Nolan said.
The Arecibo Observatory hosts the most powerful planetary radar system in the world. Observations of Bennu were obtained in 1999, 2005, and 2011. From those, Dr. Nolan created the highly-accurate physical model of the asteroid that was necessary for planning the OSIRIS-REx mission.
“One of my specific goals arriving at Arecibo was to use radar to help plan space missions, and here we are!” - Dr. Michael Nolan, Science Team Chief of the OSIRIS-REx mission
![]() Series of images of the asteroid (101955) Bennu taken from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
|
In his webinar for the Solar System Ambassadors, Dr. Nolan shared updates from the OSIRIS-REx mission, including the incredible images that the spacecraft has sent back to Earth. |
About Arecibo
The Arecibo Planetary Radar Program is funded by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program. The Arecibo Observatory is operated by the University of Central Florida (UCF) in partnership with Universidad Ana G. Mendez - Universidad Metropolitana and Yang Enterprises Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Article written by Dr. Tracy Becker - AO Collaborator / SwRI Research Scientist
Contact: tbecker@swri.edu |
Head of Planetary Radar team |
Keywords: arecibo, observatory, planetary,