2023-10-13 12:53:45
A sample of material brought to Earth from Bennu, a asteroid 4.5 billion years old, contains molecules of water and high carbon contentas announced this week by the American space agency NASA.
The initial inspection provided abundant evidence of both elements, which could indicate the basic components of life on Eartha.
Some 250 grams of extracted material of Bennu “is the larger sample of carbon rich asteroid ever brought to Earth and will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our planet,” said NASA director Bill Nelson.
NASA’s mission, named Osiris-Rexcollected the debris materials from the asteroid Bennu, and the vehicle that brought them to Earth landed on September 24 in Utah.
Almost everything we do at NASA seeks answers to questions about who we are and where we come from.
Bill Nelson, director of NASA
Dante Laurettaprincipal investigator of the Osiris-Rex mission at the University of Arizona, noted that the presence of carbon-rich material and clay minerals with water content “points us toward understanding not only our celestial neighborhood but also the potential for the beginning of life.”
This is the first time that NASA brings asteroid samples to Earth. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) managed to recover asteroid remains in 2020but it was a minimum amount, no more than a small spoonful of powder and rocks.
“Almost everything we do at NASA seeks answers to questions about about us y where we come from“Nelson added.
“Missions like Osiris-Rex will improve our knowledge of asteroids that could threaten Earth, while giving us a glimpse of what may lie beyond,” he said.
Work was done for years on the development of gloves and specialized tools to keep the asteroid material pristine.
NASA experts at the Johnson Space Center in Texas have been carefully separating the fragments of rocky material that they found not only inside the capsule but on the outside, around the lid, and at the bottom.
Vanessa Wychedirector of the Johnson Center, explained that scientists and engineers “have worked for years developing gloves and specialized tools to keep the asteroid material pristine.”
In their work, scientists have taken scan images with an electron microscope, as well as measurements with infrared light, x-ray diffractionand have analyzed the chemical elements.
Also used was a ray tomography X computerized in the production of a three-dimensional model of one of the particles that highlights its diverse interior.
The scientists chose Bennu because it is relatively rich in organic molecules and, furthermore, it has a known orbitwhich made it easier for the Osiris-Rex mothership to approach to take samples.
In October 2020, Osiris-Rex landed on Bennu and its tool drilled into the asteroid’s surface to collect samples.
Discovered in 1999, Bennu is believed to have formed from fragments of a much larger asteroid after a collision. It is half a kilometer wide and its black, rough surface is full of large rocks.
The $1.2 billion Osiris-Rex mission included the launch of a space probe in September 2016 and the vehicle began orbiting Bennu in December 2018.
In October 2020 Osiris-Rex landed on Bennu and its tool drilled into the surface of the asteroid and collected the samples that the probe brought to Earth.
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