Last week, the OSIRIS-REx capsule landed on Earth with debris from asteroid Bennu on board. Has the capsule been opened yet? What is the state of affairs?
After landing last week, the capsule was taken to a clean room, where the collected material will be removed from the capsule in the coming period. NASA hopes this will prevent possible contamination by terrestrial materials. In this clean room, scientists make small portions and these are sent to more than 35 institutes for further research.
Slower than expected
NASA now announces that the initial selection process of the material proceeds more slowly than expected. But that’s positive! This is because too much material has been collected by the capsule. Some of this is located outside the shielded storage space of the TAGSAM robot arm.
The alien material is carefully examined in a shielded glove box. The ancient asteroid Bennu has changed little in composition since the formation of the solar system. Scientists hope to learn more about the conditions under which the planets in our solar system were born.
This comes as no surprise. After collecting material on the asteroid Bennu, the closure mechanism was activated to protect the material, but at that time there was still asteroid debris outside the shielded storage area. “There is so much material outside of the TAGSAM repository that it is interesting to investigate,” said NASA researcher Christoper Snead. A first sample of material outside the TAGSAM storage area is currently being further examined by researchers.
Once all material has been collected outside the storage area, the lid can be opened and the remaining material removed. This will happen in the coming weeks, NASA writes.
On the way to Apophis
OSIRIS-REx collected asteroid debris on the surface of Bennu three years ago. At the time, the asteroid was 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) from Earth. It was the first time that NASA performed such sampling on an asteroid. The spacecraft delivered the capsule last week, but did not land on Earth itself. OSIRIS-REx is in transit to a new destination: the asteroid Apophis. The journey to Apophis is still long; The probe will not arrive at the asteroid until 2029. OSIRIS-REx has also been given a new name – OSIRIS-APEX – where APEX stands for Apophis Explorer.
2023-10-02 11:20:04
#with.. #package #asteroid #debris #OSIRISREx
