NASA on a mission to find clues about the origins of life on Earth osiris rex At the end of 2020, the spacecraft scooped up and delivered pieces of the rugged asteroid Bennu, which had become a pile of rubble. bring them to earth About 2 months ago. On Monday (December 11), scientists obtained the first detailed description of part of its extraterrestrial collection.
“We definitely have watery, organic-rich debris from the early solar system, which is exactly what we expected when we first conceived of this mission nearly 20 years ago. It’s something.” Dante Laurettasaid the mission’s principal investigator at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference being held online this week in California. “I fully expect the astrochemistry community to be active on this matter.”
Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and astrochemistry at the University of Arizona, said the 3 billion-year-old asteroid debris recovered so far came from the outer lid of a sample capsule and was rich in carbon and organic matter. He said there was. molecule. The particles are all very dark in color, made up of centimeter- and millimeter-sized “hammock-like rocks,” and have a coarse, “cauliflower-like texture,” Lauretta said. “They cling to everything we touch.”
The Osiris-Rex spacecraft was designed to make contact with Bennu for six seconds, but It eventually fell to a height of 1.6 feet. Instead, it will plunge (0.5 meters) into the asteroid’s surface for 17 seconds. A victim of its own success, the spacecraft had dug up so much material that particles began to leak from the sample collector head, still protected inside the outer lid. On Monday, Lauretta blamed a 1.3-inch (3.5-centimetre) stone for apparently pushing open a small flap on her head and causing material to escape into the lid.
Two zippers continue to fail Prevent technician from removing lid Access and catalog the majority of collected samples that are still trapped within the head. While waiting for new tools to be approved for use on precious rocks, they used tweezers to extract small rocks from partially open flaps, and the total material collected was 70.3 grams. (0.07 kg), which was higher than the expected 60 g (0.06 kg). kg).
Some of that material was shipped for spectral analysis at the NASA-supported Reflectance Experimental Laboratory (RELAB) facility in Rhode Island, while another batch Sent to the Natural History Museum in London. The first discovery, using spectroscopy (a scientific method that reveals the composition of matter by studying how different wavelengths of light reflects), shows the main spectral signature of the color blue. . This azure hue is currently unexplained, but it could mean that space rocks contain even more water than scientists originally predicted, Lauretta said. Further results will be shared at a scientific conference next spring, it added.
The material also contains high amounts of magnesium, sodium, and phosphorus, a combination that has so far baffled the research team.
“I’ve been observing meteorites for a long time and I’ve never come across anything like this,” Lauretta said. “My head hurts now. What is this material?”