How NASA Captured a Piece of the Solar System ’ s Past From an Ancient Asteroid

Infrared sensors on the ground detected the heat signature of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s sample-return capsule when it slammed into the atmosphere at more than 45,000 km/h (27,650 mph), at 8:42 a.m. MDT today. The 46 kg (101 lbs.) capsule was dropped off by its much larger OSIRIS-REx mother ship as that spacecraft went whizzing briefly by Earth. The capsule hit the air off the coast of California, aiming for a parachute landing in the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range southwest of Salt Lake City. Even before the capsule landed, four search helicopters scrambled to meet it, and the people at NASA waited anxiously to hear that it had returned safely. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] It had. The capsule thumped down at 8:55 a.m. MDT and the helicopter crews scooped it up and whisked it to a clean-room on the military base, preparing to send it off to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The scientists there will have a lot to look at. Sealed inside the capsule are 250 gm (8.8 oz.) of rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu—a 4.5 billion-year-old fossil of the ancient solar system that NASA has spent more than $800 million and seven years working to explore. The return of the sample made OSIRIS-REx only the third spacecraft—and the first American one—to pull off the asteroid-spelunking trick, after Japan’s Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2 managed it in 2010 and 2020 respectively. Understand the chemistry and histor...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news