ANTARIKSA — NASA’s first pure sample of an asteroid will land on Earth today, Sunday 24 September 2023. Everyone can watch this historic action live via NASA TV or open the link at the bottom of this article.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft carrying the samples will release a capsule containing the asteroid samples
before touching Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday at 06.42 EDT or tonight. The capsule will land gently with a parachute at 10.55 EDT or around 21.55 WIB, later.
The designated landing locations are the Utah Test and Training Range and the Department of Defense’s Dugway Proving Grounds. You can watch the landing live via the space agency’s YouTube channel below:
The OSIRIS-REx mission, which stands for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in September 2016. OSIRIS-REx is headed for Bennu, a potentially dangerous asteroid about 500 meters wide.
The probe reached its target in December 2018, setting a new record for the smallest object ever orbited by a spacecraft. He then investigated the rocks for 22 months.
Also read: This is how OSIRIS-REx took samples from the Asteroid Bennu
In October 2020, OSIRIS-REx landed on Bennu’s surface and picked up a pile of soil and gravel about 8.8 ounces (250 grams). However, the exact number will not be known until mission team members open the vehicle’s sample capsule this evening.
About a day after landing, the Bennu samples will be taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, where they will be curated and stored. JSC personnel will oversee the distribution of the material to scientists around the world, and study it for a variety of purposes.
For example, they will look for clues about the early days of the solar system, which may be hidden inside those ancient asteroids. Scientists think that carbon-rich space rocks like Bennu provided the building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago, so some sample studies will focus on collections of carbon-containing organic molecules.
After removing the capsule containing the sample,
The OSIRIS-REx aircraft will fly again. NASA has awarded an additional mission called OSIRIS-APEX that will investigate the also potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis. The investigation will reach its target in 2029, if everything goes according to plan. Source: Space.com
2023-09-24 12:59:00
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