A sample of debris from the asteroid Bennu, collected by NASA’s ‘Osiris-Rex’ probe and dropped above Earth, has landed in the US state of Utah. Protected by a heat shield and slowed down by parachutes, the capsule containing the sample landed in the desert on Sunday, live images from the American space agency NASA showed. “Congratulations! “You did it,” NASA CEO Bill Nelson congratulated his employees. “The impossible has become possible.”
NASA scientists at the control center responded with claps and cheers as the capsule, which weighed about 46 kilograms and had a diameter of about 81 centimeters, landed on Earth three minutes ahead of schedule.
Dropped at an altitude of 62,000 miles
‘Osiris-Rex’ had dropped the capsule, which resembles a kind of salad bowl with a high lid, a few hours earlier at an altitude of about 102,000 kilometers above Earth.
250 grams of rubble
According to NASA estimates, the capsule contains about 250 grams of debris collected from the celestial body about three years ago.
Helicopters first transported the capsule, which NASA’s initial assessments showed was undamaged upon landing, to a sterile laboratory near the landing site. It will then be taken to NASA laboratories in the US state of Texas, where around 200 scientists will work on the sample using 60 different research methods.
First asteroid sample successfully delivered to Earth in the US
If the capsule’s contents turn out as NASA hopes, it would be the first asteroid sample successfully delivered to Earth in the U.S. space agency’s history — and likely the largest sample ever taken. In 2005, the Japanese space probe ‘Hayabusa’ landed on an asteroid. In 2010, it brought the first soil samples ever collected from such a celestial body to Earth. There have been other flights to asteroids, but no other probe has yet brought material back to Earth.
“Osiris Rex” (the abbreviation stands for: Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) was launched from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in September 2016 and arrived at Bennu about two years later. In October 2020, the probe took a sample of the asteroid during a complicated maneuver lasting several hours: the first American rocket in space history.
Source: Krone
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