An asteroid sample stored inside a NASA spacecraft is about to reach Earth after traveling for almost two and a half years through space.
It is the first time that NASA has collected and returned an asteroid sample from space.
Together with another sample from the asteroid Ryugu, brought back by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, the rocks and soil collected could reveal information about the beginning of our solar system.
Instead of landing, the OSIRIS-REx mission will drop rock and soil samples here and continue its journey to study another asteroid.
Teams have been rehearsing how to collect these samples, originally collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, when it crashes into the Utah desert on September 24.
OSIRIS-REx is estimated to have collected up to 8.8 ounces, or about 1 cup, of material from Bennu.
“We are now just weeks away from welcoming a piece of solar system history to Earth, and the successful test launch ensures we are ready,” Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.
“Primitive material from asteroid Bennu will help us understand the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even how life on Earth began.”
It’s not every day that a spacecraft launches a capsule carrying a rare asteroid sample over the planet and attempts to deliver it safely to a specific landing site.
Years of hard work by thousands of people lead to the moment when Bennu’s sample will reach Earth.
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Source: CNN Brasil
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