After seven years, the Osiris-Rex mission probe collected fragments of the asteroid and returned to Earth this Sunday.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened this tuesday pressurized compartment of the Osiris-Rex mission probeafter it successfully landed on American soil after seven years in space. The capsule brought a sample, taken in 2020, from the asteroid Bennu that baffled scientists.
What NASA scientists found
The space agency astromaterials experts They found “dark dust and sand-sized particles on the inside of the lid and base“, as published on the X account (formerly Twitter) of NASA Astromaterials.
Still the origin was not specifiednor other characteristics of the materials found in the capsule that was delivered to the NASA Johnson Space Center last Monday, after landing in the Utah desert, United States, the day before.
osiris rex capsule.jfif
This center has the world’s largest collection of astromaterials and it will be the responsible for dismantling he “Touch and Go” Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) to access the bulk sample inside.
The Osiris-REx mission
The American space probe Osiris-RExreleased in 2016, collected the sample of a asteroid called Bennu almost three years ago. This mission provides information valuable about the composition of asteroids and contributes to the understanding of the universe.
Thes rocks and dust sample will help understand the origin of organic matter and the water that may have seeded life on Earth, as explained by the US space agency.
Source: Ambito
