Samples are spreading from the spacecraft, NASA worries

The US space agency NASA sent a spacecraft to collect rock fragments from an asteroid millions of kilometers from Earth. The spacecraft has collected so many rock samples that it is now scattering through space. BBC News.

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 stones.

They say the images sent back by the spacecraft show that a door on one side of the collection is slightly cracked due to a rock protruding from it, and some of the sample spills out from there.

According to the mission team, the machine with which the stone chunks were collected may have become too large and some stone chunks got stuck in the center 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. The head of the mission, Dante Lauretta, said that a large and significant portion of the collected rock samples came out.

He said they thought the spacecraft had picked up chunks of rock that weighed about 400 grams. The spacecraft couldn’t collect more samples than this one. He expressed concern that chunks of rock would come out from inside.

“Time is running out,” said Thomas Jarbushen, associate administrator for NASA’s science department. NASA is now struggling not to lose what’s inside. They are working with the times to prevent them from coming out.

The Osiris-Rex mission is expected to bring these rocks to Earth in 2023. 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,” said Thomas Jarbushen. We are very concerned because we think that these stones will bring the key to the historical 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. There a storm was created, said 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 investigation of 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.

TTN