“Our hope is that because this asteroid seems to be more carbon-rich than anything now in our collection, it may represent an unsampled meteorite type and will tell us something new about the solar system”, said Clark.
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On Thursday eve $800 million OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) mission will be lifted off at 7:05 pm. But OSIRIS-REx’s observations should also help scientists better understand the threat the potentially unsafe Bennu poses to Earth. The spacecraft itself won’t touch down on our planet, but the samples will eject and land in Utah in 2023.
But it doesn’t seem to have rattled the OSIRIS-REx team. “We haven’t identified any damage or any concerns as a result of the incident last week”, said Scott Messer, program manager for NASA missions at ULA. (Or something.) One of the reasons scientists are so keen to study Bennu is that it’s a relic from the very beginning of the solar system – a time capsule that has been unchanged over these intervening 4.6 billion years. NASA estimates that there is a one-in-2,700 chance that Bennu might hit Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199. If so, Bennu is a time capsule that could help explain how life sprouted on Earth and, possibly, elsewhere in the neighborhood.
“We need to know the mass and gravity field of the asteroid before the spacecraft comes in contact with it and to understand the sample we will collect”, Scheeres added. “For that [search], it’s all about the sample”.
Still, there are several things that the mission can teach us even before we bring a little piece of the asteroid back.
The UA is headed back out to space with a new NASA mission next week. Those instruments wouldn’t have survived being launched into space, so the sample return allowed scientists to manipulate the particles in ways that would be impossible on board bulky spacecraft. That material is interesting because it is rich in organic molecules, the precursors of the chemicals of life.
Scientists call it a high-five or kiss.
Bennu was discovered in 1999 and after its orbit was determined, it was given the official designation 101955 1999 RQ.
By studying water within the samples, scientists also hope to learn whether asteroids may have brought water to Earth. His answer was: “If it’s coming in three weeks, pray”.
“It’s the gift that keeps on giving”, Richey said. Ideally, mission members say, that sample will be collected in July 2020.
The arm is 3.4 metres long and ends in a round head that can release a blast of nitrogen gas. “So if you want to predict where an object like Bennu is going to be in the future, you have to account for this phenomenon”. For months it will hang out – take pictures, make scans of the asteroid’s surface and create a map. “It also gives us some insight into how the mass is distributed inside the asteroid”. The 1,600-foot (492 meters) asteroid dances in a path around Earth, and the odds of this object colliding with the planet are well under 1 percent.But it’s not the only space rock nearby, and understanding its structure and composition will help should a more threatening asteroid be found, the researchers said.
Here’s how it works: The sun heats up the asteroid.
Lauretta added he feels confident about this decision, especially after seeing what happened with the European Space Agency’s Philae lander.
“It really is a great adventure. we are bringing back scientific treasure”, Lauretta said.
A small asteroid designated 2016 RB1 safely flew past Earth today at 10:20 a.m. PDT (1:20 p.m. EDT / 17:20 UTC) at a distance of about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers, or just less than 1/10th the distance of Earth to the moon).
“We’re going out into the unknown”.
OSIRIS-REx has five instruments, including cameras, for exploring Bennu using remote sensing. One final question – what’s the point?
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“We’re going to get to asteroid Bennu and we’re going to map this brand new world that we’ve never seen before”, said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator.
