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After months of nosiness and jimmying , NASAscientists have at last opened the canister containing material scraped from the " potentially wild " asteroid Bennu , the agency announce on Thursday ( Jan. 11 ) .
The sample — more or less 8.8 apothecaries' ounce ( 250 Gram ) of rough space dust collected by the OSIRIS - REx ballistic capsule — is thought to contain some of the earliest precursors to life and is the first clump of a space rock’n’roll ever grabbed by a NASA mission .
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx curation engineer, Neftali Hernandez, fixes one of the tools made to remove the two final fasteners to the capsule.
NASA had already collected 2.5 troy ounce ( 70 g ) of the sample from the canister shot ’s palpebra , but two stuck fasteners stopped scientists from reaching the material inside . After creating newfangled tools to remove the stubborn clutch , NASA engineers at long last unsealed the container on Wednesday ( Jan. 10 ) .
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" Our engineers and scientists have worked indefatigably behind the tantrum for month to not only work on the more than 70 g of textile we were capable to get at antecedently , but also design , educate , and test new creature that tolerate us to move past this hurdle,“Eileen Stansbery , foreman of NASA ’s ARES ( Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science ) divisionsaid in a argument . " The innovation and dedication of this squad has been remarkable . We are all excited to see the stay treasure OSIRIS - REx hold . "
An artist’s illustration of OSIRIS-REx above the asteroid Bennu’s surface.
NASA scientists first call up the canister on Sept. 24 after it hurtled back to Earthaboard the OSIRIS - king capsuleat speeds of up to 27,000 miles per hour ( 43,000 kilometers per hour ) . After a seven - year , 4 billion - mile ( 6.4 billion kilometre ) rhythm misstep , the abridgement deployed its chute and safely set down in the Utah desert before being transported to Johnson Space Center in Houston .
The keep - up on retrieve the capsule ’s precious freight was due to two out of its total of 35 fixing getting stuck . To prevent contamination NASA had to preapprove any shaft used to open up the narrow-minded container . The solvent came in the figure of two clamp - corresponding creature made from operative blade ; these were first prove in a rehearsal research lab to prove they could safely remove the clasps .
Now that the boxful has been open up , NASA says it will follow a " few additional disassembly steps " before it can photograph , selection , weigh and work on the remaining sample . belittled firearm scrape from the lid have already been commit around the earthly concern for analytic thinking , and will soon be followed by the contents establish inside .
Two images taken by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft show the sampling arm touch the surface of asteroid Bennu.
Bennu is apotentially hazardous asteroidthat has a 1 - in-2,700 hazard of striking Earth in the year 2182 — the highest odds of any known outer space object . But the scientists are more interested in what ’s trapped inside the place rock : the possible extraterrestrial predecessor of life on Earth .
" This is the biggest carbon - full-bodied asteroid sample distribution ever returned to Earth , " NASA AdministratorBill Nelsonsaid ata news conferenceupon the sample ’s return . " Carbon and H2O molecules are incisively the elements we desire to find . They ’re all-important element in the formation of our own major planet , and they ’re going to avail us determine the descent of elements that could have led to life . "
Earth ’s water is old than the planet itself and was probably lend here by asteroid andcomet impact . But pee likely was n’t the only cloth asteroid brought to Earth ; the edifice pulley block of life likely hitched a drive on a quad rock , too . Bennu is a B - type asteroid , which means it bear high amount ofcarbonand , potentially , many of the primordial molecules present when life come forth on Earth .
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Some of these building blocks — including uracil , one of the nucleobases forRNA — were recentlyfound on the asteroid Ryuguby the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft , which returned to Earth with its rock sample in 2020 . OSIRIS - REx mission scientist are hoping to find other such biologic precursor inside the Bennu sample .
OSIRIS - REx mission scientist spentnearly two age searchingfor a landing site on Bennu ’s craggy surface before the spacecraft touched down to garner the sample . Upon making striking with the asteroid , OSIRIS - REx fired a outburst of atomic number 7 from its Touch - and - Go Sample - Acquisition Mechanism to both stick the landing place and forestall the guile from subside through the asteroid .
The blast send off rocks and dust careening around the workmanship , and some of that rocky detritus landed in a cannister aboard OSIRIS - REx . A follow - up blast of OSIRIS - REx ’s thrusters later rescind it from Bennu , and the spacecraft fill in a issue of flyovers before go out the asteroid for Earth in May 2021 .
Now that the sample has arrived , scientists around the world will start analyze it for clues about how oursolar system , and the life on our planet , came to be .
