[ad_1]
This artist’s illustration of Bennu and other asteroids represent the building blocks of the rocky planets in our solar system. Credit: NASA
Asteroids have been orbiting the sun for thousands of millennia in deep space, like ancient storytellers, with clues to the formation of the solar system. POTThe first mission to collect an asteroid sample, Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Safety Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), just made his first attempt to collect the potentially dangerous asteroid Bennu and bring its secrets to Earth. But NASA also has several other asteroid missions with different purposes, as well as a dynamic program to help us identify and learn more about potentially dangerous objects to defend our planet.
Not all asteroids are the same. But scientists believe that Bennu-like asteroids could have seeded Earth with water and organic compounds, and may potentially be rich in those resources and precious metals that could be valuable to humanity in the future to help fuel exploration of the system. solar by robots and humans. . Scientists are also eager to find more potentially dangerous asteroids, learn more about their orbits and physical characteristics, and develop possible protective measures to mitigate the dangers posed to Earth.
In the coming years, NASA will launch several ambitious missions to study unique asteroids to complete more pieces of the cosmic puzzle. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and Lucy missions will launch in July and October 2021, respectively. The Psyche mission follows closely with a launch date of 2022. And as New Horizons continues to investigate the Kuiper Belt after its rewarding flybys of Pluto and Arrokoth, the latest asteroid-bound mission, Janus, is in development. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to begin its journey back to Earth in 2021 and return in 2023.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) tracks and characterizes potentially dangerous objects and studies strategies to mitigate their danger. PDCO sponsors projects through its Near Earth Object Observation (NEO) Program which uses a variety of ground and space telescopes to search for NEOs, determine their orbits, and measure their physical characteristics.
“Asteroids and small bodies are important keys to understanding the history of the solar system,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Division of Planetary Sciences. “The technology and engineering required to visit and study them has improved rapidly, and we are excited about the transformative science that our missions to asteroids will provide us in the near future.”
DART
DART is PDCO’s exciting first planetary defense mission. The mission will test planetary defense technologies to prevent an Earth impact by a dangerous asteroid. DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique for changing the motion of an asteroid in space. The target is the Didymos binary asteroid system, consisting of the largest Didymos and its smallest ‘lunar’ Dimorphos, with diameters of ~ 780 and 160 m, respectively. The spacecraft will hit Dimorphos with a near frontal impact in September 2022 that will change the speed and trajectory of Dimorphos. However, there is no concern that the trajectory of the system will ever intersect with that of Earth. While the scientists will use an international observing campaign, using ground-based telescopes, to determine the change in Dimorphos’ orbit, the action up close is possible thanks to NASA’s international partnership with the Italian Space Agency and its Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging. of the asteroid (LICIACube) that will capture images of the effects of the impact on the surface and the anticipated ejection column that it will produce. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, leads NASA’s mission.
LUCY
The Lucy mission is unlike any other space mission in history, it investigates eight asteroids that orbit our sun, providing unrivaled information on the processes of planet formation. Lucy will go on a 12-year journey to study the diversity of a main belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids: asteroids trapped in JupiterOrbit: believed to be remnants of the same material that formed the outer planets. The suite of instruments on board Lucy will characterize surface geology, surface color and composition, interior properties and volume, as well as the satellites and rings of each asteroid. The mission’s name originates from the fossilized human ancestor (named “Lucy” by its discoverers) whose skeleton provided researchers with a unique understanding of humanity’s evolution. Similarly, the Lucy mission will transform the knowledge of our planetary ancestry and the evolution of the solar system. Lucy is led by Principal Investigator Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
PSYCHE
Dancing in orbit between Mars and Jupiter is the single metal asteroid Psyche 16, the destination of NASA’s Psyche mission. Scientists believe that this asteroid may be like the unreachable metal cores of terrestrial planets. Unlike other rocky or icy bodies, scientists believe that Psyche is composed primarily of metallic iron and nickel, similar to the core of the Earth, and possibly the “heart” of a primitive planet that lost its outer layers. The mission instruments will not only characterize the topography, but will help scientists determine if Psyche 16 is really the core of a protoplanet or if it is unfused material. They will also be able to conclude the relative ages of the asteroid’s surface regions and determine whether the small metallic bodies contain similar light elements that are expected in the high-pressure cores of terrestrial planets. Psyche is led by lead researcher Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University.
ASTROBIOLOGY
The O in OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins: understanding the origins of the solar system, which includes the origin of life on Earth. Bennu, the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission, will help us answer important questions in astrobiology, such as the role that asteroids may have played in delivering life-forming compounds to Earth. It is a primitive carbonaceous asteroid that has the earliest history record of our solar system. Rich in carbon, Bennu potentially contains organic molecules like those that make up life on Earth. While we have been able to study meteorites, they have undergone an extremely hard reentry to Earth. The sample collected by OSIRIS-REx will remain unchanged, increasing the fidelity of research and scientific findings.
Asteroids will continue to be a source of intense scientific curiosity for decades to come with these and other missions set out to explore our many and diverse neighbors in space. As we grapple with the challenges of protecting ourselves from these ancient space rocks, we will also learn more about our solar system and how these mysterious objects played a role in our past and will affect our future.
[ad_2]
