NASA launched the Osiris-Rex mission probe that traveled to the asteroid Bennu, and what they discovered baffled them.

NASA was able to open the pressurized box of the Osiris-Rex mission probe this Tuesday Collecting the fragments of a distant asteroid, he announces that he has found something inside that confuses them. The space agency promised to carefully examine the valuable sample given the difficulty and precision required to obtain it.

The mission landed in the US desert last Sunday UtahAfter a high-risk maneuver and seven years in space. The capsule brought back a sample from the asteroid Bennu in 2020And according to the first estimates, there was about 250 grams of material from the aforementioned asteroid.

During that process the work was not without problems, NASA realized that the lid of the collection container could not be closed. But the specimen was finally preserved and transferred to the study as planned.

However, because of this failure, scientists expect to find the remains of the specimen in the box it was placed in, outside of the collection box, as not all items are believed to have been preserved.

So Tuesday afternoon, scientists Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, managed to open the first lid on one of the labs’ hermetic chambers. The first thing NASA crews spotted was “black dust and debris,” the space agency announced, without specifying whether they were asteroid fragments or other debris.

This material will be analyzed and a “A careful extraction processFrom the collection box, the space agency wrote, “to access the core sample located inside.”

A press conference is scheduled for October 11 to “promote the exhibition”. Analysis of the composition of the asteroid Bennu will allow scientists to better understand how the Solar System formed and how Earth became habitable.

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Scientists believe that this space body (500 meters in diameter) is rich in carbon and contains water molecules surrounded by minerals. There is a small risk (one chance in 2700) Bennu hits Earth in 2182 and it will be devastating. In 2022, NASA managed to deflect an asteroid’s path.

The US space probe Osiris-Rex, launched in 2016, collected the sample Bennu Almost three years ago. His return to Earth is scheduled for Sunday at 9 a.m. (12 p.m. local time in Argentina). Army test site in western Utah.

About four hours ago, at a distance of about 108,000 kilometers from Earth, the Osiris-REx probe released a capsule containing a sample. The final descent lasted 13 minutes. The capsule reached its maximum temperature in the atmosphere at a speed of 43,000 km / h 2800°CThe space agency noted.

Thus, two successive parachutes made the capsule soft-land in the desert, where it was recovered by personnel in the area. A target area of ​​650 km2 seemed to be reached “Throw a dart across a basketball court and hit the target”Rich Burns, Osiris-REx Project Manager at NASA explained.

With information from AFP

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