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Photo source, Reuters
The mystery of how the solar system was formed is probably hidden in this asteroid called Bennu. So the collected samples are very important to scientists.
NASA sent a spacecraft to collect rock fragments from an asteroid billions of kilometers from Earth. But the spacecraft has collected so many rock samples that it is now falling off the spacecraft and spreading into space.
The collected specimens of these asteroids are very important to know the secret of how the solar system was formed.
Officials from NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft say the spacecraft landed on an asteroid named Bennu earlier this week. The vehicle probably did a very good job picking up the stone.
They say the images sent back by the spacecraft show that the door to a sample collection tank is slightly open due to a rock sticking out and some of the sample is spilling out.
According to the mission team, the machine with which the stone chunks were collected may have been overcrowded and some pieces may have gotten stuck in the middle of the machine’s lid. As a result, the rocks are spreading from the instrument into space again.
NASA scientists are now trying to see if these rocks can be safely inserted into a capsule.
“A large and significant portion of the stones that have been sampled are coming out,” said Dante Lauretta, head of the mission.
He said they believed the spacecraft had picked up chunks of rock that weighed about 400 grams.
The spacecraft couldn’t have collected more samples than these, he said. “I am very concerned about the pieces of rock coming out from the inside out. Because we have been victims of our own success here.”
“Time is running out,” Thomas Jarbushen, NASA’s assistant science administrator, told reporters. NASA now strives not to lose what is inside, they are working with time to prevent them from going out.
The Osiris-Rex mission is expected to bring these rocks to Earth in 2023.
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Photographs taken by NASA of the Sun’s decade-long journey
An attempt will be made to safely insert the pieces of stone into the spacecraft. Scientists say the spacecraft will not be able to determine the exact number of rock samples it collected.
“We have to work hard to get the collection capsule in quickly and safely, but if we can do it very quickly, we will still have enough samples,” he said. Jarbushen. “We are very excited, because we believe that these rocks will bring the key to the historic moment in the hands of scientists.”
The asteroid Bennu is about 200 million miles from Earth and Osiris-Rex landed on Bennu’s chest on Tuesday.
A lot of dust and rocks were scattered while samples were collected from the asteroid’s surface. “We actually created a storm there,” he said after landing Tuesday. Dante Lauretta.
Scientists hope the mission will shed light on how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. After the spacecraft returns to Earth in 2023, scientists eagerly await research on rock samples. An unknown secret of the formation of the solar system lurks in the rocks of the asteroid Bennu.
This spacecraft was sent by NASA in 2016.
Comparison of the size of the asteroid Bennu with the Empire State Building
