2023-09-22 08:15:15
Updated Friday, September 22, 2023 – 08:15
The capsule carries approximately 250 grams of rock material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in 2020.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returning to Earth.NASA
This small central spot is the first image of the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx from NASA that approaches Earth with samples of the asteroide Bennu after a trip of almost three years.
On Sunday, September 24, the mission will drop its rock sample to pass through Earth’s atmosphere and land safely at a military field in Utahbefore continuing to study the asteroide Apophis.
The pristine material from asteroid Bennu will help shed light on the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even how life on Earth began. The capsule carries approximately 250 grams of rock material collected from the surface of the asteroid. asteroid Bennu in 2020.
Observed on September 16 by ESA’s Optical Ground Station (OGS) telescope in Tenerife, OSIRIS-REx was 4.66 million kilometers from Earth. It travels at 23,000 kilometers per hour.
Recreation of OSIRIS-REx.NASA
This image is a combination of 90 individual images, each with 36-second exposures. They have been combined in a way that takes into account the motion of the spacecraft, which is not traveling in a straight line, causing the apparently stretched background stars to curve and deform, ESA reports.
He OGS telescope ESA’s 1-meter telescope was originally built to observe orbiting space debris and test laser communication technologies, but it has since expanded its horizons to conduct surveys and follow-up observations of near-Earth asteroids and perform nighttime astronomical observations and even discovered dozens of minor planets.
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