Written by Amira Shehata Thursday, September 28, 2023 10:00 PM NASA’s adventurous OSIRIS-REx space capsule already carried surprises, which delivered Sample of an asteroid About 200 million miles away, agency employees opened the space capsule to discover that the inside of the lid was lined with a mysterious black substance, forcing them to stop work.
According to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, unlike the handful of rocks and dust that were extracted from the surface of the asteroid, the black material appears more fine, like a layer of dirt covering a dirty car.
NASA said that the material will be subjected to rapid analysis to find out exactly what it is, but one of the scientists weighed in before the official ruling was issued.
Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University in Canberra, said the fine dust was also likely to be material from the asteroid, adding: “The asteroid’s clay is very dark.”
NASA admitted shortly after the capture that asteroid material was leaking from OSIRIS-REx, due to a stone jammed in the mechanism.
“They eventually sorted it out, so it seems likely that this is dust and soil from the leak,” Dr Tucker added.
NASA has only opened the capsule’s top lid since the sample returned to Earth on Sunday, while the rocky handful from Bennu is hidden away in another smaller component inside that must be opened.
The precious payload is estimated at 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams, of the rock material, about half of what you’d find in a medium-sized box of cereal.
But NASA believes that revealing secrets about asteroid formation will be enough to help us better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth.
The sample of gravel and dust from the asteroid Bennu, which could collide with Earth in 2182, represents the largest amount from outside the Moon.
