On September 24, 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned to Earth with a sample from the asteroid Bennu. The sample is currently stored at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston

OSIRIS-REx is an acronym for “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer”. The spacecraft touched down on Bennu on October 20, 2020, and left the asteroid on May 10, 2021. The sample is the largest ever collected from an asteroid, weighing about 250 grams. 

The samples contain water and carbon, which are key ingredients for life on Earth. OSIRIS-REx has now started a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX, to explore the asteroid Apophis, which it will reach in April 2029

OSIRIS-REx collected samples of dust and pebbles from the asteroid Bennu in 2020. The samples include rocks and dust, which could help scientists understand the early stages of the Solar System. 

The samples could also provide insights into how planets formed, what materials were present in the early Solar System, and even how life on Earth might have originated

The OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission is a NASA mission that collected and returned samples from the asteroid Bennu. The mission’s goal was to collect a sample from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu and bring it back to Earth

The mission launched in September 2016 and spent two years traveling to Bennu.  In 2018, the spacecraft arrived at Bennu and spent nearly two years orbiting it, mapping and studying its terrain. On October 20, 2020, the spacecraft landed in a small crater on the asteroid’s northern hemisphere. The spacecraft’s sample arm plunged into the surface and collected about 250 grams of material. 

The spacecraft returned to Earth on September 24, 2023, and is now on a new mission to explore the asteroid Apophis

The OSIRIS-REx mission also aims to help scientists better understand asteroids and the early Solar System. Bennu is a remnant from the formation of the Solar System, and it’s thought to be rich in carbon. NASA hopes the samples will help scientists learn how to better predict the long-term risks of near-Earth asteroids like Bennu. 

Scientists also hope the samples will provide clues about whether asteroids colliding with Earth billions of years ago brought water and other key ingredients for life to Earth. The asteroid rubble also contains water in the form of water-bearing clay minerals. NASA believes these minerals may have landed on Earth 4 billion years ago

According to NASA, the samples from Bennu could provide information about the origins of organics and water that led to life on Earth. The samples could also provide information about potentially hazardous asteroids. 

Here are some other things the samples could tell us:

• Planet formation The samples could provide insights into how planets formed and the origins and development of rocky planets like Earth. 
• Organic material The samples could provide an inventory of the materials present at the beginning of the solar system that may have had a role in the origin of life. 
• Water The amount of water on Bennu could tell us whether Earth was born wet, or born dry and then water was brought to it. 
• Mineral fragments Some of the mineral fragments inside Bennu could be older than the solar system itself. These microscopic grains of dust could be the same ones that spewed from dying stars and eventually coalesced to make the sun and its planets nearly 4.6 billion years ago. 

According to NASA, the samples from the asteroid Bennu contain water and carbon, which are essential elements for life. The samples also contain water-bearing clay minerals

Here are some of the findings from Bennu:

• Carbon: The sample contains more carbon than expected, and is nearly 5% carbon by weight. Some of the sample is as much as 4.7% carbon, which is among the highest percentages of extraterrestrial carbon ever measured. 
• Water: The sample contains an abundance of water. 
• Age: The asteroid is 4.5 billion years old. The findings could help scientists understand how the solar system formed and how life started on Earth. They could also provide more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space

Here are some unusual characteristics of asteroid Bennu:

• Size Bennu is about 500 meters in diameter, which is relatively small compared to other asteroids. This means that Bennu doesn’t have enough gravity to smooth out its rocky surface. 
• Density Bennu has a very low density, which suggests it’s made of porous materials rather than solid rock. 
• Rotation Bennu rotates rapidly, which makes it more susceptible to the Yarkovsky effect. This effect alters its orbit by changing how it absorbs and re-emits sunlight. 
• Orbit Bennu orbits in the opposite direction of the rest of the asteroid belt. Most asteroids orbit the Sun counterclockwise, but Bennu moves clockwise. 

Asteroids are considered time capsules because they have been preserved in space for billions of years. Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid that scientists believe is a remnant of the solar system’s formation. It’s thought to be made of material that’s around 4.5 billion years old.

A time capsule is a collection of information or goods that’s intended to communicate with future people. The practice of preserving everyday artifacts and messages for the future is a more recent practice

According to NASA, asteroids can act as time capsules, preserving the history of the solar system and potentially containing clues about the origin of life

NASA scientists have described the asteroid sample returned to Earth as a capsule to our ancient solar system. The NASA livestream narrator described the event as “opening a time capsule to our ancient solar system”. 

The OSIRIS-REx mission brought back a cup of rubble from asteroid Bennu, the biggest haul from beyond the Moon. The capsule parachuted into the Utah desert on Sunday, completing a 7-yr journey. Scientists will analyze the samples to better understand Earth’s formation.

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