Asteroid sample return mission successful for NASA

Asteroid sample return mission successful for NASA

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Asteroids are composed of the original materials of the Solar System, which are about 4.5 billion years old, and have remained relatively intact.

“They can give us clues about how the solar system formed and evolved,” said Melissa Morris, OSIRIS-Rex program executive. “This is our own origin story.”

“We believe that asteroids and comets that struck the Earth’s surface delivered organic matter, potentially water, that helped life flourish on Earth,” Simon said.

Scientists believe Bennu, about 500 meters (1,640 feet) in diameter, is rich in carbon – the building block of life on Earth – and contains water molecules locked in minerals.

Bennu surprised scientists in 2020 when the probe, during its brief contact with the asteroid’s surface, sank into the soil, revealing an unexpectedly low density, like a children’s pool filled with plastic balls.

Understanding its structure may be useful, as there is a slight – but non-zero – chance (one in 2,700) that Bennu could catastrophically collide with Earth, although not until 2182.

NASA successfully deflected the path of an asteroid by crashing a probe into it in a test last year, and at some point it may need to repeat that exercise — but with much greater risk.

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