It looks like Bennu was without a doubt the ideal target for NASA’s initially-ever asteroid sample-return mission.

That mission, OSIRIS-REx, sent items of the 1,650-foot-extensive (500 meters) Bennu to Earth late last month. NASA gave the planet its first seem at the sample nowadays (Oct. 11) in the course of a stay webcast party, which also presented a rundown of the to start with analyses carried out on the off-Earth materials.

“The OSIRIS-REx sample is the largest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever sent to Earth and will enable researchers look into the origins of lifestyle on our have world for generations to arrive,” NASA Administrator Monthly bill Nelson reported in a assertion today. 

“Virtually every little thing we do at NASA seeks to reply queries about who we are and the place we arrive from,” Nelson included. “NASA missions like OSIRIS-REx will make improvements to our comprehending of asteroids that could threaten Earth though supplying us a glimpse into what lies beyond. The sample has created it back again to Earth, but there is continue to so much science to occur — science like we have under no circumstances found ahead of.” 

OSIRIS-REx introduced in September 2016 and arrived at Bennu in December 2018. The probe invested the subsequent 22 months finding out the area rock from orbit and looking for the correct area to swoop down and seize a sample.

That sampling operate took area in October 2020, and it furnished a honest little bit of drama: Bennu’s floor turned out to be surprisingly porous, and OSIRIS-REx sank deeply into it. 

But the probe emerged with a bounty — so much materials that its selection mechanism bought clogged, making it possible for some asteroid dirt and pebbles to escape into place. OSIRIS-REx continue to managed to safe most of the Bennu bits in its sample container, and the probe headed towards Earth in May 2021.

The journey home wrapped up on Sept. 24, when OSIRIS-REx’s return capsule landed in the desert of northern Utah. A working day later on, the sample arrived at NASA’s Johnson Room Middle (JSC) in Houston, where it is getting processed, curated and stored.

That get the job done has only just started. For illustration, mission staff members still will not know particularly how much product OSIRIS-REx hauled property. They imagine it’s about 8.8 ounces (250 grams) — far increased than the mission requirement of 2.1 ounces (60 g) — but that’s just an estimate, calculated while the return capsule was nonetheless in space.

JSC will distribute pieces of the Bennu sample in excess of the coming months and many years to scientists all-around the entire world, who will study it in terrific depth. 

Their work will decide, amid other points, the identity of the carbon compounds, which could get rid of light-weight on how lifestyle received began here on Earth. (A lot of scientists consider carbon-wealthy asteroids like Bennu seeded our world with life’s constructing blocks long back, by way of impacts.)

And Bennu is a relic of our photo voltaic technique‘s planet-creating period, so using the rock’s measure will assist us fully grasp the development and evolution of our cosmic yard on a larger sized scale, mission crew customers reported.

“As we peer into the ancient secrets and techniques preserved in just the dust and rocks of asteroid Bennu, we are unlocking a time capsule that provides us profound insights into the origins of our photo voltaic process,” Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, claimed in the exact statement. 

“The bounty of carbon-rich material and the considerable presence of h2o-bearing clay minerals are just the idea of the cosmic iceberg,” he explained. “These discoveries, produced doable via many years of committed collaboration and slicing-edge science, propel us on a journey to recognize not only our celestial community but also the possible for life’s beginnings. With each individual revelation from Bennu, we attract closer to unraveling the mysteries of our cosmic heritage.”

The journey isn’t in excess of for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, by the way. Although its return capsule is now back on Earth, the probe retains on traveling, toward one more asteroid called Apophis. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to arrive at that place rock in 2029 and analyze it up close, on an extended mission called OSIRIS-APEX.

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