NASA is finalizing its preparations to land a valuable asteroid sample on Earth next month.
The agency’s OSIRIS-REx mission team conducted a landmark test Wednesday (August 30), discovering a dummy capsule that crashed to Earth at the US Department of Defense Test and Training Center in Utah, in the desert west of Salt Lake City.
This is where the actual OSIRIS-REx sample capsule, which contains approximately 8.8 ounces (250 grams) of material from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, will land on September 24.
“Right now we are only weeks away from getting a piece of solar system history back to Earth, and this successful drop test ensures we are ready,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. statement on Wednesday.
Fox added: “The original material from the asteroid Bennu will help explain the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and possibly even how life began on Earth.”
Related: Dramatic sampling shows that the asteroid Bennu is not what scientists expected
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016, with the mission of studying and collecting samples from Bennu, a potentially hazardous asteroid approximately 1,650 feet (500 meters) in diameter.
The spacecraft arrived at Bennu in December 2018. It then monitored the asteroid closely for about two years, taking measurements of the rocks and looking for good places to swoop in and take samples.
That moment arrived in October 2020, and it came with a fair amount of drama and surprises.
“We definitely thought we’d land on a solid surface – these are asteroids, these are rocks from outer space – but actually the response was more fluid-like, as if you were dropping into a ball pit somewhere.” “This is a children’s playground,” said OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona, during a news conference on Wednesday.
“The good news is that because the surface is so smooth, we collect large amounts of material,” he added.
This material is now being delivered to Earth using the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which stands for “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer.” The mission team had been training for his arrival for some time, carrying out a series of tests over the spring and summer. NASA officials said Wednesday’s retrieval of the capsule was part of the last major exercise.
After landing, the capsule will be transported to a clean room at Utah Military Field, for processing. Bennu’s material will then be sent to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it will be curated.
Over the coming months and years, some of this asteroid material will be sent to scientists around the world, who will study it for clues about how our solar system formed and evolved.
The researchers will also look for evidence of the existence of carbon-containing organic molecules, the building blocks of life. Carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu are thought to have delivered most of this material to our planet, along with most of the water, through long-standing impacts.
By the way, the OSIRIS-REx probe won’t land on Earth next month: it will continue to fly, on an extended mission to explore the asteroid Apophis.
OSIRIS-REx is slated to reach Apophis – like Bennu, a potentially hazardous asteroid – in 2029.
2023-08-31 02:59:57
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