NASA OSIRIS-REx mission: 250 grams of material from the asteroid Bennu reach Earth

It has been 10 minutes of vertigo but the capsule with 250 grams of material from an asteroid called Bennu has already arrived in the Utah desert, in the United States.. These are the dust and rock samples collected on October 20, 2020 by a NASA spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, which was launched in September 2016 and which this noon diligently released the capsule with the material into space. when it was about 100,000 kilometers from Earth, culminating a seven-year adventure. Afterwards, the spacecraft has diverted its trajectory to begin a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer) to explore the asteroid Apophis, which it will arrive in 2029.

Meanwhile, the capsule with dust and rock from the asteroid Bennu, which at 4:42 p.m. entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 44,500 kilometers per hour, slowed down with the help of two parachutes until it fell into the desert.. The capsule touched down at 4:52 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time), three minutes ahead of schedule.. Immediately, the rescue team deployed at the Dugway military testing ground went to recover the capsule, whose contents will help study the origins of our solar system and prepare future planetary defense missions to deflect asteroids that may pose a threat to our planet. .

The helicopter took just 20 minutes to reach the landing site, which was first inspected by an Army specialist to ensure that there were no explosives in this area of the training field.. The next person to approach was a Lockheed Martin engineer, who checked the condition of the capsule and measured the gas levels around it, wearing heat-resistant gloves (the capsule was hot after enduring very high temperatures during its flight). interaction with the atmosphere) and a gas mask to protect against possible harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide that could have been released if the capsule's battery was damaged. According to visual analysis, the capsule was in good condition.

The procedure to minimize the chances of the valuable contents of the container being contaminated upon contact with the Earth's surface has been meticulously and long tested, and includes taking samples (both soil and air) from the landing zone.. The Lockheed engineer placed covers over the capsule's vents, which are designed to let air in through a filter and adjust the pressure inside the capsule during space travel.. Once it cooled, the container, weighing about 45 kilos, was placed in a metal box and wrapped in several layers of Teflon material and a tarp.

With a harness, she has been attached to a cable to be transported by helicopter to a mobile clean room at the Utah base. In this clean room, where there are only six people, they have checked its condition, they have opened the capsule, removed the container with the sample and have prepared it so that on Monday it will be transferred to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which will guard most of the samples.

NASA's plan is that approximately 20% of the capsule material will be distributed among the more than 200 scientists who are part of this mission.. The Canadian Space Agency will keep 4% and the Japanese agency, JAXA, will be given 0.5%. A small portion of the sample will also be stored in White Sands, New Mexico, for safekeeping.. The rest, approximately 70%, “will be preserved for posterity, for when better instruments are available and so that future scientists can study it,” as Lucas Paganini, NASA planetary scientist, explained to this newspaper on Friday. during an interview from Dugway training camp.

The parachute has allowed the capsule to slow down during its landing in the desert NASA

Until now, only Japan had managed to bring material from an asteroid to Earth, through the Hayabusa 2 robotic mission, which in December 2020 brought 5.4 grams of rocks and dust from the asteroid Ryugu to our planet.. The pioneer was the eventful Hayabusa 1 mission, which in 2010 became the first probe to bring particles from an asteroid to Earth for analysis.. But due to various technical problems, instead of obtaining several grams of dust, it brought less than a milligram of particles that were also contaminated by material from the ship itself.

As Paganini relates, “asteroids are fossils or time capsules, the remains of the formation of planets and moons that took place 4.6 billion years ago.”. These remains allow us to understand how they were formed and in addition, we have theories that maintain that asteroids or comets could have brought to Earth the essential elements for the beginning of life, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen or even water.”

Explosion in the sky after the NASA capsule enters the atmosphere

Scientists believe Bennu formed from the pieces of a much larger asteroid in the asteroid belt after a catastrophic collision that would have taken place between 1 billion and 2 billion years ago.. Astrophysicists argue that asteroids like Bennu could have released organic molecules and water through collisions with Earth billions of years ago.

The other important aspect to undertake a mission like this, adds Paganini, is planetary defense: “The study of these components allows us to better understand their composition in the face of possible asteroids that may have a dangerous course for Earth,” he points out.

Two helicopters from the team that recovered the samples NASA

This asteroid approaches Earth approximately every six years – which has also made it easier to send a spacecraft there.. Although until recently NASA estimated that there was a one in 2,750 chance of Bennu colliding with Earth on September 24, 2182, the latest revisions of the orbit suggest that the risk is lower than previously estimated, and it seems that even In the year 2300 there would be practically no risk of collision, since NASA considers that a collision “is very unlikely”. In the more distant future, this 500-meter rock could potentially collide with Earth or Venus, but at the moment, NASA admits, they cannot make accurate predictions.

A year ago, NASA managed to divert the trajectory of an asteroid for the first time, with a mission called DART with which it tested one of the techniques that are expected to be used in the future when a rock is detected heading towards the Earth: Was able to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos around the asteroid Didymos in 32 minutes.