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Osiris Rex mission, what will the asteroid sample Bennu be used for

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Osiris Rex mission, what will the asteroid sample Bennu be used for

The NASA Osiris-Rex capsule landed on Sunday with samples taken from the asteroid Bennu. By studying the asteroid sample, scientists hope to learn more about how our solar system evolved over billions of years.

Touchdown for Osiris-Rex, the NASA mission that brought an asteroid sample back to Earth.

On September 24 at 8.52 am American time (4.52 pm in Italy), the capsule released by the NASA Osirix-Rex probe (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) landed in the Utah desert with samples taken from the asteroid Bennu.

Today, September 25, the Bennu sample – approximately 250 grams – will be transported in its unopened container by plane to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Scientists plan to remove the lid to see the sample for the first time tomorrow,CNN says.

The returned samples collected by Bennu will help scientists around the world make discoveries to better understand the formation of planets and the origin of the organic substances and water that led to life on Earth, as well as benefit all of humanity. humanity by learning more about potentially dangerous asteroids ( To find out more here is the link to the latest episode of the Space! podcast ).

All the details.

THE OSIRIS-REX MISSION

The OSIRIS-REx mission lifted off in 2016 and began orbiting Bennu in 2018. The spacecraft collected the sample in 2020 and set off on its long journey back to Earth in May 2021. The mission traveled a total of 3.86 billion miles to Bennu and back.

After being released from the spacecraft, the capsule containing the sample landed under the parachute yesterday.

NASA'S SATISFACTION

“Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team on a perfect mission – the first American asteroid sample return in history – that will deepen our understanding of the origin of our solar system and its formation. Not to mention that Bennu is a potentially dangerous asteroid and what we learn from the sample will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could encounter us,” said NASA chief Bill Nelson.

THE TARGET

Asteroids like Bennu, comets and meteorites are increasingly essential to scientists' understanding of our solar system. In fact, they hope that by learning more about them, they can shed light on some of the mysteries of our universe, including how water, and even life, got a foothold on Earth, Axios points out.

“Scientists believe asteroid Bennu is representative of the oldest materials in the solar system, forged in large dying stars and supernova explosions,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Sciences Division: “And for this reason, NASA is investing in these small-body missions to increase our understanding of how our solar system formed and evolved."

NASA plans to reveal details about the sample on October 11th. Although the science team will not have had time to fully evaluate the sample, the researchers plan to collect some fine-grained material at the top of the container tomorrow for a rapid analysis that can be shared in October, Lauretta said. The initial analysis will look for the presence of minerals and chemical elements, he said.

So scientists will analyze the rocks and soil for the next two years in a dedicated clean room inside the Johnson Space Center. The sample will also be split and sent to laboratories around the world, including Osiris-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. About 70% of the sample will remain intact during storage, so that future generations equipped with better technology can learn even more than is possible now, CNN explains.

“ASTEORID AUTUMN”

“With Osiris-REx, the launch of Psyche in a couple of weeks [topic of the next episode of Spaziale! ed.], the first anniversary of DART and the first approach to the Lucy asteroid in November, Asteroid Autumn is in full swing,” added the NASA director.

Last October, NASA recorded the success of the Dart mission: the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos changed after the impact with the Dart probe on September 26, 2022.

It was the first mission of its kind, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart), designed to determine whether the technology could one day be used to defend Earth from dangerous asteroids or comets by diverting them from colliding with the planet.

The sample may also provide information about the asteorid Bennu, which could collide with Earth in the future. Bennu, discovered in 1999, is a huge black stone about 500 meters in diameter that circles the Sun in a year and two months and approaches the Earth every six years, at a distance similar to that with the Moon. According to NASA calculations, there is also the possibility that the asteroid will collide with our planet between 2175 and 2196. By a strange coincidence, the date with the greatest probability of collision is September 24 of the year 2182.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/missione-osiris-rex-a-cosa-servira-il-campione-di-asteroide-bennu/ on Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:59:15 +0000.