NASA spacecraft enters orbit around ancient asteroid, sets records

A NASA spacecraft has gone into orbit around an ancient asteroid, setting a pair of records.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft entered orbit today around the asteroid Bennu, 110 million kilometres from Earth. It's the smallest celestial body ever to be orbited by a spacecraft. Bennu is just 500 meters across.

The spacecraft's laps are barely 1.6 kilometres above the asteroid's surface, another record.

Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in early December and flew in formation with it until the latest manoeuvre. The goal is to grab gravel samples in 2020 for return to Earth in 2023.

The New Year's Day milestone occurred just hours before another NASA explorer, New Horizons, was set to fly past an icy space rock beyond Pluto.