09/24/2023 – 20:05
The first asteroid samples collected in deep space from the American Space Agency, NASA, parachuted into the Utah desert, in the USA, this Sunday, 24.
On a pass by Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule 100,000 kilometers away. The small capsule touched down four hours later in a remote area of military terrain, while the mother ship went in search of another asteroid.
Landing occurred three minutes ahead of schedule. Officials later said the parachute opened four times higher than expected, leading to the early landing.
Scientists estimate the capsule contains at least a cup of debris from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but they won’t know for sure until the container is opened. Some samples leaked and floated when the spacecraft collected too much and rocks jammed the lid of the container during collection three years ago.
Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples, gathered about a teaspoon in two missions.
The pebbles and dust delivered this Sunday represent the largest shipment from beyond the Moon. Preserved building blocks from the beginning of the Solar System, 4.5 billion years ago, the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life form. formed.
Osiris-Rex, the mothership, took off on a $1 billion mission in 2016. It arrived at Bennu two years later and, using a long-stick vacuum cleaner, collected debris in 2020.
NASA’s recovery in Utah included helicopters, as well as a temporary clean room set up at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The samples will be transported on Monday, 25, to a new laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The building already houses hundreds of kilograms of lunar rocks collected by Apollo astronauts more than half a century ago.
The mission’s lead scientist, Dante Lauretta, from the University of Arizona, will accompany the samples to Texas. The opening of the container in Houston in the coming days will be “the moment of truth” given the uncertainty about the quantity inside, he said. NASA plans a public presentation in October.
Bennu
Currently orbiting the Sun 81 million kilometers from Earth, Bennu is about a third of a half kilometer wide, about the size of the Empire State Building but shaped like a spinning top. It is believed to be a broken fragment of a much larger asteroid.
During a two-year search, Osiris-Rex discovered that Bennu was a rubble pile full of rocks and craters. The surface was so loose that the spacecraft’s vacuum arm sank about 0.5 meters into the asteroid, sucking in more material than expected and jamming the lid.
These close-up observations could be useful later in the next century. Bennu is expected to get dangerously close to Earth in 2182 – possibly close enough to collide. The data collected by Osiris-Rex will help in any asteroid diversion effort, according to Lauretta.
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