They find “black dust” when opening the Osiris-Rex probe with samples from the asteroid Bennu

2023-09-27 05:27:08

Updated Wednesday, September 27, 2023 – 05:27

Analysis of the composition of the asteroid Bennu will allow scientists to better understand how the Solar System formed and how the Earth became habitable.

This artistic rendering, provided by NASA on September 6, 2016, shows the Osiris-Rex spacecraft taking samples from asteroid Bennu. APSpace NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission: 250 grams of material from asteroid Bennu reach Earth

NASA on Tuesday opened the Osiris-Rex mission probe that collected fragments of an asteroid and announced that it found “black powder and debris” inside, although the bulk of the sample has not yet been examined.

Seven years after takeoff, the probe landed on Sunday in the American desert in Utah, after a high-risk maneuver.

The sample, taken in 2020 from the asteroid Bennu, It contains around 250 grams of material, according to estimates by the US space agency.

During that operation, NASA realized that The lid of the collection container could not be closed. But the sample was finally secured and transferred to the probe as planned.

However, because of this failure, scientists expected to find remains of the sample outside the compartment collection, in the box where it was placed.

On Tuesday, a first lid was opened in an airtight chamber at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

NASA teams immediately “found black dust and debris,” the space agency announced. without specifying whether they were asteroid fragments.

This material will be analyzed and a “careful disassembly process” of the collection compartment will be carried out, “in order to access the main sample found inside”, wrote the space agency.

One is planned press conference for October 11 to “make the sample known.”

Analysis of the composition of the asteroid Bennu will allow scientists to better understand how the solar system was formed and how the Earth became habitable.

Scientists believe that this space body (500 meters in diameter) andIt is rich in carbon and contains water molecules encased in minerals.

There is small risk (one chance in 2,700) that Bennu will hit Earth in 2182, which would be catastrophic. In 2022, NASA managed to divert the trajectory of an asteroid by impacting it.