The OSIRIS-REx mission will also get a new name.
, watching the rock during a close, but very safe, approach it will make to planet Earth in 2029.
up close. To clarify, while the asteroid falls under the classification of potentially hazardous asteroid because of its large size and ability to make close approaches to Earth, Apophis does not pose a threat to Earth. "People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it with the naked eye, that's how close it will get. We were stoked to find out the mission was extended," Dani DellaGiustina, who will become the principal investigator of OSIRIS-APEX after the probe's current mission ends, said in aDellaGiustina, who is a researcher at the University of Arizona, is now deputy principal investigator of OSIRIS-REx.
To do this requires the team to redirect the spacecraft. It will also split the team apart, with one group covering the analysis of Bennu's sample and leaving the rest of the team tasked with keeping the spacecraft healthy and able to finish out a few more years in space. The spacecraft launched in 2016 and will be 13 years old, almost double its first mission's lifetime, by the time it studies the close approach of Apophis in 2029.
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