NASA spacecraft lands on an asteroid, apparently has a fragile surface

KOMPAS.com – Landing spacecraft belonging to the United States Space Agency (NASA) from asteroid Bennu, revealed that not all asteroids have a solid and strong surface.

The brief landing showed that the space object had a surface that scientists did not expect.

Instead of being a solid flying rock, Bennu is made up of tiny pebble-like particles that aren’t tightly bound to one another, creating a lot of space on its surface. Scientists also say that Bennu’s surface is like a plastic ball.

Also read: The James Webb Space Telescope Tracks Asteroids For The First Time

The findings also made scientists think that if at that time, the space probe called OSIRIS-REx extended its stay longer, it could be that the spacecraft would sink to the asteroid.

“Our expectations of the asteroid’s surface were completely wrong,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx and lead author of a paper describing the findings regarding the surface of the asteroid Bennu.

Quoted from Gizmodo, Wednesday (13/7/2022) OSIRIS-REx arrived at the asteroid in December 2018 with a mission to take a sample of the asteroid Bennu and bring it back to Earth for analysis.

The probe then landed on Bennu in October 2020, extending its robotic arm to pick up a piece of the asteroid. By stirring up some of the dust and gravel in the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx was then able to pick up several ounces of material.

OSIRIS-REx then immediately fired its thrusters to retreat from Bennu.

The probe’s sampling head touched the surface of Bennu for approximately 6 seconds before retreating.

Even though it only landed in a very short time, it managed to reveal a big thing. From the landing, Bennu produced a chaotic gravel explosion and a crater 8 meters wide.

“After reviewing the footage from the sampling, we saw a large wall of debris gushing out from the sample site,” Lauretta said.

Also read: How Do Meteors, Meteoroids, and Asteroids Happen?

Furthermore, after analyzing the volume of debris seen in the footage before and after the landing site, scientists learned that OSIRIS-REx encountered an obstacle.

When the spacecraft fired its thrusters to leave, it seemed to sink into the asteroid.

“We found a lot of empty space on its surface,” Kevin Walsh, a member of the OSIRIS-REx science team and lead author of a second paper on Bennu’s composition, said in a statement.

Yet when OSIRIS-REx first arrived at the asteroid, close-up images of Bennu revealed that its surface was covered in solid boulders.

This finding is only one insight into Bennu, because scientists are still in the early stages of understanding the surprising space object.

Also read: Sky Phenomenon July 2022: Supermoon to 3 Near-Earth Asteroids

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