Bennu

Proper noun

Bennu

1. (Egyptian, often, with-definite-article) A self-created deity with the form of a bird (in New Kingdom artwork, a heron) that features in the ancient Egyptian creation myth and is also described as the ba (soul) of Ra.
   • One compound name, of which it is an element, is that of the city, from which the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile was denominated Sebennu, that is, "the temple of Bennu," a god, who was represented in the form of a waterfowl, and whose phonetic name is of frequent occurrence.1830, "E. H.", Fragments on Egyptian Literature, Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, page 349
   • 15 The Uas Sceptre is the origin of the “Phoenix Wand”, which is the Wand of the Imperator of A!∴!A!∴,. The head of the wand was not originally a Bennu Bird, but the head of the god Set. The identification with the Bennu seems to have originated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.2014, J. Daniel Gunther, The Angel & The Abyss, Nicolas-Hays, Inc. (Ibis Press), page 113
2. The near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu.
   • Osiris-Rex’s arrival at Bennu was not like the landing of NASA’s InSight spacecraft in one piece on the surface of Mars last Monday. (Happily, it landed flawlessly.)2018 December 3, Kenneth Chang, “NASA’s Osiris-Rex Arrives at Asteroid Bennu After a Two-Year Journey”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
   • McCoy’s team, including 66 researchers across four continents, found the salt and minerals left behind as water on Bennu, or its larger parent asteroid, evaporated. The minerals include sodium phosphates, carbonates, sulfates, chlorides and fluorides, some of which are necessary to the formation of...2025 January 29, Ashley Strickland, “Historic asteroid sample reveals the ‘building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin,’ scientists say”, in CNN