HOUSTON: NASA is scheduled to unveil, on Wednesday, the initial images of the most extensive asteroid sample ever collected in space.
This significant achievement by the OSIRIS-REx mission, which gathered rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu in 2020, is expected to provide valuable insights into the early days of our solar system and, possibly, the origins of life.
The capsule containing this precious cargo safely returned to Earth two weeks ago, landing in the Utah desert. It is undergoing meticulous analysis within a specialized clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
To share these photographs and initial scientific findings, NASA will conduct a live-streamed news conference at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (1500 GMT).
While Japan completed similar missions in 2010 and 2020, the distinctive aspect of OSIRIS-REx is the substantial amount of material it brought back, a notable 250 grams (about half a pound), in contrast to Japan’s Hayabusa2, which returned only 5.4 grams.
NASA chose to sample Bennu primarily due to its suspected richness in organic compounds. Scientists believe that asteroids like Bennu might have transported organic building blocks and water to Earth through ancient collisions billions of years ago.
Additionally, Bennu’s orbit, intersecting with that of our planet, made the roundtrip journey more convenient compared to traveling to the Asteroid Belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.
Notably, NASA researchers have discovered “bonus particles,” described as black dust and debris coating the sample collector.
This phenomenon occurred when, in October 2020, the OSIRIS-REx probe deployed nitrogen gas to collect the sample, but a flap meant to seal it got jammed open with a piece of rock.
This allowed some finer material to escape the collector without being lost entirely. As Christopher Snead, the deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead, pointed out, this “problem” of having so much material is exceptionally positive.
It’s theorized that Bennu originated from fragments of a larger asteroid in the asteroid belt following a colossal collision around one to two billion years ago.
The spacecraft’s data revealed that the particles comprising Bennu’s exterior were so loosely packed that a person stepping onto its surface might sink in, similar to stepping into a pit of plastic balls.
Furthermore, apart from scientific insights, a better understanding of Bennu’s composition could be valuable if humanity ever needs to alter its trajectory. While there’s no immediate threat of Bennu colliding with Earth until at least the mid-2100s, NASA estimates that the likelihood increases to around 1 in 1750 between then and the year 2300. —APP
