Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) – A NASA spacecraft left chaos on the asteroid when it picked up last year’s debris load to return to Earth, new images were revealed on Thursday.
The Osiris-Rex spacecraft made asteroid Bennu’s final flight on April 7 to capture images of the turbulence left by October’s sample collection.
Depression was seen when Osiris Rex broke through the asteroid’s surface. The rock is removed by compressed nitrogen gas that is released to Earth to move matter into a vacuum, and by spacecraft escape propellants. A rock weighing 1 ton was thrown about 40 feet (12 m).
The Osiris-Rex team carefully planned the final flyover to ensure the best possible shot. The photos were taken around noon to avoid shadows and get a better look at the changes in the Bennu rock face.
“This entry was not in the original mission plan, so we are very excited to go back and document what we were doing,” said Dathon Gulish of the University of Arizona in a statement.
Osiris-Rex will leave around Bennu next month and return to Earth with a valuable 2 pound (1 kilogram) specimen. The aircraft is scheduled to arrive in 2023.
Asteroids, which orbit the sun and are rich in carbon, are 182 million miles (293 million km) from Earth. By studying the parts of them, scientists hope to better understand how the planets of our solar system form and how people should interact if asteroids threaten Earth.
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Division of Science Education. AP is fully responsible for all content.
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