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Impact on early Europa, illustration
Impact on early Europa. Illustration of the surface of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, early in the history of the solar system, with an impact occurring at centre left. Jupiter is at upper centre. This artwork was part of a sequence titled 'Bennu's journey', detailing the 4.5 billion year history since the formation of asteroid 101955 Bennu. Discovered in 1999, this asteroid will be visited in 2018 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission (launching 8 September 2016). The spacecraft will study it and return a sample to Earth for analysis in 2023. The asteroid may hold clues to the origin of the solar system and the source of water and organic molecules found on Earth. Some asteroids formed from debris created in collisions such as this.
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