NASA’s seven-year mission may find clues to the origins of life on Earth when asteroid samples return to Utah
Earth is about to receive its largest sample ever from an asteroid. A NASA spacecraft will fly by on Sunday, dropping pebbles and dust collected from the asteroid Bennu. The capsule containing the sample will be parachuted into the Utah desert. (September 22nd)
AP
Space rocks are in the big news this weekend. And it may become even bigger news in the next century.
Bennu, the potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid that is the subject of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, is scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday morning and could potentially collide with Earth more than 150 years from now. NASA scientists predicted In recent research.
Fortunately, it’s a small chance.
What is the OSIRUS-REx mission? What is happening on Sunday?
Osirus Rex, a solar-powered unmanned spacecraft the size of a household toolbox, has traveled 4.4 billion miles over the past seven years to bring back samples from Bennu.
On September 8, 2016, NASA launched a spacecraft into space to collect samples from an asteroid that will tell us more about its composition and the formation of our solar system.
OSIRIS-REx (an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) is the United States’ first attempt to recover and analyze samples from an asteroid.
The $800 million mission is expected to end Sunday morning when an estimated half-pound of rock from the asteroid falls by parachute to a test and training range in Utah, 130 miles west of Salt Lake City.
NASA will livestream the landing, and the samples collected will be sent to a laboratory in Houston for testing.
How did Bennu collide with Earth?
According to NASA, Bennu, which is classified as a near-Earth object (NEO), could pass through the “gravitational keyhole” and collide with Earth in 2182. But the chance that Bennu will actually hit Earth that year is 1 in 2,700, or 0.037%.
an asteroid passes by Earth every 6 years It has had three close encounters with Earth in 1999, 2005, and 2011. Experts say in new paper. Bennu is also expected to come closer to Earth than the Moon in 2135, and if that happens, Earth’s gravitational pull could cause it to collide with Earth on September 24, 2182.
clock: NASA’s Osiris-Rex returns to Earth from asteroid Bennu
What is Bennu?
Bennu was first discovered in 1999. larger asteroid It collided with another space rock. It’s about a third of a mile wide and about as tall as the Empire State Building, according to NASA.
Its black surface is packed with rocks and revolves around the sun every 14 months.
Bennu is rich in carbon; remaining fragments A kind of time capsule that may help elucidate the origin of life from the formation of the solar system.
The asteroid is named after an Egyptian god In 2013, by a 9-year-old boy in North Carolina. Bennu is an ancient Egyptian god associated with the sun, creation, and rebirth.
clock: How NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will bring Bennu asteroid samples back to Earth
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Contributors: George Petras, Ramon Padilla, Janet Loehrke, USA TODAY
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on platform SheX, formerly known as Twitter @saman_shafiq7.