KOMPAS.com – An example of Bennu asteroid material brought by one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) missions, namely OSIRIS-REx, just arrived on Earth at the end of last September.
The asteroid sample carrier capsule just landed on September 24 2023 in the Utah Department of Defense area, United States.
Also read: Mission to Asteroid Bennu Reveals Why the Asteroid’s Surface is Rocky?
The release of the capsule was captured by OSIRIS-REx via the Touch-and-Go Camera System on the OSIRIS-REx aircraft (TAGCAMS’s NavCam 1) and published by NASA on October 3, 2023.
In the recording of the capsule being dropped, a small area of the earth can be seen on the left side of the recording. Apart from that, you can also see sunlight at the top of the image.
Quoted from UniverseToday, the asteroid sample capsule was dropped from a plane on Bennu at 4.42 AM with a distance of 100,000 kilometers and a speed of 44,500 kilometers per hour.
The capsule began landing at 8.44 AM, while its speed at landing was known to be 18 kilometers per hour.
This landing was carried out using two parachutes to prevent the capsule from being destroyed due to the very high falling speed.
Mission since 3 years ago
Reporting from NASA’s official website, Saturday (29/9/2023), the mission to collect material from the asteroid Bennu was carried out 3 years ago.
However, this mission turned out to take longer to complete the mission than predicted.
“The biggest problem is that there’s so much material there, it’s taking us longer to collect it,” said Christopher Snead, OSIRIS-REx Deputy Chief Curator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Also read: NASA Spacecraft Leaves Asteroid Bennu for Earth
NASA/Robert Markowitz
Members of NASA’s curation team along with Lockheed Martin recovery specialists supervise after successfully removing the cap on the Bennu asteroid sample return tube.
It is being analyzed in detail
Examples of Bennu asteroid material are currently being analyzed in detail down to the atomic scale. Lindsay Keller, a member of the analysis team from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said that the instruments and facilities used in this analysis were the best.
The analysis carried out includes rapid observations of asteroid samples via an electron microscope or scanning electron microscope (SEM), measurements of infra-red waves, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to obtain more comprehensive information.
SEM is able to provide analysis of the morphology and chemical properties of the sample, while infrared measurements can provide information on whether the sample contains hydrated minerals and organic particles.
Meanwhile, XRD is very sensitive to differences in minerals so that it can identify the type or even proportion of minerals in the sample.
Quoting Space.com, the research team predicts the mass of the sample will be around 250 grams. However, currently the accurate amount of Bennu sample material is still being calculated and will be announced on October 11 2023.
Samples of asteroid material brought back by OSIRIS-REx are expected to be studied over the next few decades and are thought to hold important information about the early days of the solar system.
Also read: NASA Spacecraft Leaks, Collects Too Many Samples of Asteroid Bennu
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2023-10-06 02:33:00
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