Over the weekend, the OSIRIS-REx probe successfully delivered rocky samples from asteroid Bennu, which could hold clues to the origins of life on Earth.
Earth just got a special delivery: Pieces of an ancient asteroid that were snagged straight from the source and dropped off in the western Utah desert. After traveling through space for nearly three years, the journey is just beginning for the precious rock samples, which could help scientists figure out the story of life.collected from asteroid Bennu at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.
Following its parachute-assisted landing at 10:52 a.m. ET, a helicopter carried the sample capsule in a cargo net to a temporary clean room where it was connected to a continuous flow of nitrogen. The nitrogen purge, as scientists call it, is meant to prevent Earthly contaminants from entering the canister containing pieces of Bennu so that the asteroid sample remains pure for scientific analysis.On Monday, the Bennu sample, an estimated 8.
The OSIRIS-REx mission launched in September 2016 and reached asteroid Bennu in December 2018. After nearly two years of observations, the spacecraft landed on Bennu and in October 2020. On May 10, 2021, OSIRIS-REx said goodbye to Bennu and began its journey back home to drop off its precious cargo.The spacecraft was 63,000 miles away from Earth’s surface when it released its sample capsule toward Earth’s atmosphere at 6:42 a.m. ET, according to NASA. After dropping off its sample, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft began making its way towards its next mission of exploring asteroid Apophis. Accordingly, the mission will be renamed to OSIRIS-APEX .
The sample capsule made its way down at speeds of 27,650 miles per hour , and it pierced the atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET off the coast of California at an altitude of about 83 miles . Around 10 minutes later, the capsule landed in the Utah desert with the help of two parachutes to slow it down.
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