The remains of Bennu will bring science unprecedented material that will help understand the beginnings of the Solar System, formed 4.5 billion years ago. Therefore, NASA studies every step it takeswhile opening the capsule that the OSIRIS-REx space probe deposited on our planet at the end of last month.
There were seven long years between takeoff, collection and return, to carry out one of the best space missions that NASA has completed.
Although all the stages were delicate, the one currently being developed has an additional asterisk. It is the one that will be in charge of studying the pristine material of the asteroid, which is said to be one of the first rocks in our Solar System.
Opening the capsule means doing so in an environment that is as pure as possible, so that the common elements of our planet do not influence what scientists can detect in each of the dust grains of Bennu’s rocks.
The process of opening the capsule has been delayed because during the collection process, the OSIRIS-REx It took a lot more material than they expected. So with Bennu’s abundance of debris, scientists don’t want to damage anything that might fall out when they remove the seals and seals from the device.
In four days, we will be revealing the sample from asteroid Bennu collected from the #OsirisRex mission.
Tune in to our live broadcast starting at 11 am ET on Wednesday, Oct. 11. pic.twitter.com/pqZhDie3HK
— NASA’s Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) October 6, 2023
On the lid there are something called dark particles, which made the experts enclose the capsule inside a container that does not let any of its elements escape.
“The biggest ‘problem’ we can have is that there is so much material that it is taking longer than we expected to collect it,” explains Christopher Snead, deputy head of curation at OSIRIS-REx, from NASA’s Johnson Space Centeraccording to review Infobae.
“There is a lot of rich material outside of the TAGSAM head that is interesting in itself. It’s really spectacular to have all that material there. We have all the microanalytical techniques that we can apply to this to really sequence it, almost down to the atomic scale,” detailed Lindsay Keller, member of the OSIRIS-REx sample analysis team.
“The best ‘problem'”: NASA is keeping a low profile regarding the disclosure of its valuable cargo of dust from #asteroid from #Bennu, and there seems to be a significant reason behind this caution. (few) https://t.co/cRQwdIITPL
— DW Español (@dw_espanol) October 5, 2023