NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe has achieved a historic feat by landing in the Utah desert with the largest asteroid sample ever collected. This material, collected in 2020 from the asteroid Bennu, contains approximately 250 grams of material, much more than the two asteroid samples previously collected by Japanese missions.
The fall of the sample capsule, observed by military sensors, was stopped by two parachutes. During the descent, the capsule reached a speed of 43,000 km/h and a maximum temperature of around 2,800 degrees Celsius upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission aims to help better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth and shed light on the beginning of the solar system. This sample is considered the largest recovered from lunar rocks obtained during the Apollo program in the 1970s.
Once on the ground, a team of scientists checked the condition of the capsule before transporting it to a “clean room” to avoid any contamination that could affect subsequent analyses. The sample will be flown to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where the capsule will be opened under airtight conditions and experiments will be performed.
Asteroids contain clues to how the solar system formed and evolved, and their composition can provide valuable information about Earth’s history and the origin of life. This scientific feat marks a milestone in space exploration and will provide new insights into our solar system and the possibility of future asteroid threats to Earth.