Just over a month after NASA’s Osiris-Rex probe brought samples from the asteroid Bennu to Earth, the public can see some of it for themselves. NASA boss Bill Nelson himself unveiled the first public display of a rock from the sample on Friday at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. The tiny stone can be seen in a small container in a display case that also contains models of the space probe and the rocket that launched it. In total, the Natural History Museum says it received two fragments; the one not on display will therefore be researched on site.
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(Image: NASA/Keegan Barber)
Problems with taking asteroid samples
Osiris-Rex dropped the sample above Earth at the end of September; after a minute-long descent, it landed hanging from a parachute near Salt Lake City in the Utah desert. Within a few minutes, NASA specialists were on site and were able to recover the capsule. They also took samples from the landing site in order to be able to detect possible contamination later. In total, the probe brought back more than 250 grams of samples, more than 20 times as much as the Japanese probes Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2, which first transported material from asteroids to Earth. A lot of carbon and water, the basic building blocks of earthly life, have already been found in it.
So far, only around 70 grams have been able to be removed from the sample container; access to the rest is prevented by jamming locks. To open it, you would need special tools. However, they are not approved for use in the airtight tank in which the sample container is largely shielded from earthly influences. NASA has already announced that the removal of the remainder will take weeks. In view of this, it seems surprising that the US research institution Smithsonian, which runs the Natural History Museum in Washington, has already received two samples. At the same time, it underlines how important the US space agency is to involving the public.
Osiris Rex (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) was launched in September 2016 and arrived at Bennu around two years later. The probe then explored the celestial body from an orbit. In October 2020 she managed to take samples from its surface. In spring 2021, the probe made its way back to Earth. But her work is not over with the delivery of the sample; as Osiris Apex, she is now heading for the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. It should reach this point after the extremely close flyby of Earth in 2029 and explore it from an orbit.
(mho)