23-10-2020 | 18:29 PM
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touches Asteroid Bennu
Context
In 2016, the United States based National Aeronautics and Space Administration had launched the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft to the Asteroid Bennu. After two years of circling, the Spacecraft has now touched the Asteroid.
Key highlights
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx stands for- Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security – Regolith Explorer asteroid sample return mission.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is traveling to Bennu, a carbonaceous asteroid whose regolith may record the earliest history of our solar system.
In 2016 the mission was launched to study the Bennu asteroid and it reached Bennu in 2018 with an objective to return to Earth with its cargo, carrying 60 grams of samples from the Asteroid.
OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s 1st mission to attempt to collect and carry a pristine, unaltered sample for scientific study from an asteroid back to Earth.
The spacecraft will attempt to touch the surface of the asteroid Bennu, which is hurtling through space at 63,000 miles per hour.
An 11-foot-long robotic arm named TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) will be deployed by the spacecraft.
It will spend approximately 10 seconds extracting from the asteroid at least two ounces of loose rubble.
The spacecraft comprises 3 bottles of nitrogen that can make the spacecraft touch down the asteroid three times.
About Asteroid Bennu
Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid whose regolith may record the earliest history of our solar system. Bennu is a B-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 492 meters and has a roughly round shape. It completes an orbit around the Sun every 436.604 days and every 6 years it comes very close to Earth, within 0.002 AU. The asteroid is under observation by the Earth's numerous observatories. If Asteroid Bennu hits the Earth then it has a huge potential to cause widespread death and immense destruction all over the Earth. It might lead to human-extinction.
Significance of the mission
Studying such a sample might allow scientists to answer fundamental questions about the origins of the solar system.
Mapping Bennu's chemical properties will tell about the ability of mining asteroids to generate rocket fuel for the exploration of the solar system by robotic and crewed spacecraft.
Asteroids like Bennu contain natural resources such as water, organics, and precious metals.
Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid with a potential threat of impacting the Earth so the mission is also seeking ways to prevent such a collision. In order to do so OSIRIS-REx will determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties, which in the event of an impact mitigation mission will be critical to know.
Bennu may contain the molecular precursors to the origin of life and the Earth’s oceans.
