A capsule of rocks and dust collected from the asteroid Bennu has finally landed on Earth. On Sunday, it landed at 10:52 a.m. EDT in the target area of the Utah Department of Defense’s Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.
101955 Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid that is part of the Apollo group. The asteroid has a radius of about 262 meters (1,610 ft or 0.30 mi). This is one of those space objects for which the probability of collision with the Earth is quite high. In 2135, it will be at a distance of about 300 thousand kilometers from the Earth.
Ensure cleanliness
Within an hour and a half, the capsule was transported by helicopter to a temporary clean room set up in a hangar at the test site, where it is now connected to a continuous stream of nitrogen.
Putting the sample under a “nitrogen purge,” as scientists call it, was one of the most important tasks for the OSIRIS-REx team. Nitrogen is a gas that does not interact with most other chemicals, and the continuous flow of it into the sample container inside the capsule will prevent terrestrial contaminants from penetrating to keep the sample clean for scientific analysis.
The returned samples collected from Bennu will help scientists around the world make discoveries to better understand the formation of the planet and the origin of the organic matter and water that led to life on Earth, and will benefit all of humanity by learning more about potentially hazardous asteroids.
Bennu sample
The 250 gram Bennu sample is currently being transported in an unopened canister by airplane to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, supervising scientists will disassemble the canister, remove and weigh the sample, inventory the rocks and dust, and eventually distribute the Bennu pieces to scientists around the world.
“The successful delivery of samples from Bennu to Earth is a triumph of collaborative ingenuity and a testament to what we can accomplish when we come together for a common goal,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
According to him, scientists now have an unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the mysteries of the solar system.
Delivery features
After traveling billions of miles to and from the asteroid Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft released its sample capsule toward the Earth’s atmosphere at 4:42 a.m. EDT. At that time, the spacecraft was 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) from the Earth’s surface – about one-third of the distance from Earth to the Moon.
Traveling at a speed of 27,650 mph (44,500 km/h), the capsule broke through the atmosphere at 8:42 a.m. EDT off the coast of California at an altitude of about 83 miles (133 kilometers). Ten minutes later, it landed on a military training ground. Along the way, two parachutes successfully deployed to stabilize and slow the capsule to a gentle 11 mph (18 kmh) during landing.
Radar, infrared, and optical instruments in the air and on the ground tracked the capsule to its landing coordinates in a 58-by-14-kilometer area (36-mile by 8.5-mile) at a distance. Within minutes, a recovery team was dispatched to the capsule’s location to inspect and retrieve it.
The team found the capsule in good condition at 11:07 a.m. EDT and then determined it was safe to approach it. Within 70 minutes, they had it wrapped for safe transportation to a temporary clean room at the site, where it remains under constant surveillance and nitrogen purging.
