The past 4.5 billion years have been a time of extreme loneliness for asteroid 101955 Bennu. In the early days of the solar system, a huge impact shattered the ancient cosmic stone, leaving dust and debris in the air. Gravity forced the garbage ile neck to weave together, and since then, it has wandered like a lone bennu, like the top of a space stone spinning. For billions of years, it has been flowing around the Sun between Earth and Mars, untouchable and incompatible.
On December 3, 2018, a greeting was sent into orbit by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft.
After a 27-month journey from Earth, NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft went to Bennu for a closer look. Bennu was finally accompanied. The spacecraft is part of an ambitious plan to bring Bennu’s piece back to Earth, the first time such a feat has been attempted by a NASA mission.
Since the arrival of the asteroids, Osiris-Rex has been busy taking measurements and resizing Bennu. It demonstrated nearby flybies to get high resolution on the surface and in late 2019 the planet unexpectedly caught debris in space. Its five devices are collecting data, mapping the surface of Bennu and slowly surviving together with the story of the asteroid. Where did it come from? What is it made of? Will it collide with the earth? (It’s not the last possibility, but Ben is likely to pass close to the next century.)
On Thursday, a group of new studies published in the Journal of Science and Science Advances shed light on these questions rather than further revelations about Bennu’s boulder-ridden surface. In addition, a detailed investigation of the “Nightingale” pit has been approved by Osiris-Rex, targeting the daring hist of Osiris-Rex. Set for October 20th.
The artist’s imprint shows Osiris-Rex reaching the surface of Bennu.
NASA / Goddard / University of Arizona“As a group, these papers will help us fill in more information about Bennu’s history and what to expect back in the sample,” says Hannah Kaplan, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
And the study collection helps answer even the biggest questions about the early solar system. Bennu may look boring, spinning through an obscure gray space stone infinity. But that’s really the message of the bottle. Sticking to the cosmic ocean of imagination, it contains the secrets and clues about the construction of the solar system and the evolution of its rocky exterior.
A departure
Bennu, unabashedly, is described as a “pile of rubble.” The wider it is, the wider the Empire State Building. From a distance, it seemed easy – but the truth became clear as Osiris-Rex approached. “When we got there, we felt the surface was cracked in the boulders,” explains the Kap plan.
Officially named “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer,” Osiris-Rex has been revolving around Bennu for almost two years, to pass around the planet’s weak gravity. In that time, he has pointed to an array of devices on his surface that can see into visible light, infrared and X-rays. In totality, they allow scientists to get a clear view of asteroids and determine the types of elements and minerals embedded in surface rocks.
In a study published in Science Advances, the types of stones on the surface of Bennu are more clearly defined. Using thermal and infrared images on Osiris-Rex, the scientists determined that Bennu is probably made up of two types of stones containing the same type of mineral but with different strength properties. Researchers suggest that the “weaker” rocks on Bennu will probably burn in a burn atmosphere and that is why we have not found meteorites with appropriate properties.
Some properties are compared to meteorite objects – celestial bodies found on Earth – helping to reveal details about Bennu that are impossible in orbit alone, Kaplan says. “If we can associate Bennu with a specific meteor or meteor mass, we are able to unlock a lot of new information,” he notes. If weak stripes are cut during Osiris-Rex sample collection, we may have material access to material not present in the Earth’s meteor collection.
Red versus blue
One of the most compelling findings is the discovery of carbon content on the surface of Bennu and around the Nightingale Pit. Based on Earth observations, Bennu was expected to have a high carbon content but those Osiris-Rex observations have confirmed previous assumptions.
In two studies published in Science, the researchers were able to find a series of luminous veins around the surface of the bennu with extensive carbon-bearing material and alleged signs of carbonate minerals. The veins tell us about very early solar system water, according to Kaplan.
“Probably water flowed from these veins, carbonate accumulated,” he says. Bennu is believed to be part of a larger asteroid that orbited the solar system in its early days, so this helps to depict the body and the water system in it. “The size of the veins indicates that the fluid system was large, probably ibly kilometers in size.”
Bennu’s global map illuminates the carbon-bearing material in 98% of Bennu’s surface. Blue corresponds to less absorption, red shows more absorption. There is no discretionary pattern.
Simon et al. Science (2020)Another study will also shed light on this parent planet by examining differences in Bennu’s surface color and reflection. Images obtained by Osiris-Rex can be processed to illuminate the surface of Bennu in red or blue, which researchers use to determine how much sunlight is reflected.
Fully exposed to space without any atmospheric protection, Bennu is surrounded by micrometrics and solar wind. Over time, this surface waters. But Bennu’s weather suggests that something about the planet is different from what we see on other cosmic bodies.
“On the lunar surface and many asteroids, we have observed that the space surfaces of space become darker and redder,” explains image processing lead scientist Daniela Delagistina at Osiris-Rex. “On Bennu, however, the opposite is true – over time we’ve seen Bennu become brighter and blurry in response to space weather.”
Researchers have found that Bennu’s surface is “extremely diverse” in this wavelength, indicating a chaotic collision between its parent body and the other between the objects. Possibly this collision causes objects to arise from inside the parent’s body where different geological processes are taking place, throwing them into the void. Eventually, gravity pulled them into the configuration we see on Bennu’s surface today and that is the reason why there is no recognizable pattern in the carbon formation on its surface.
It bodes well for the next landmark of Osiris-Rex.
Around the nightingale floor
The biggest challenge still remains for Osiris-Rex: he must lift Ben using orders sent by man in a spacecraft 200 million miles to Earth. Oct. On the 20th, Osiris-Rex will begin his descent, drawing closer to the Nightingale Crater for his descent.
“We have spent more of the mission searching for a safe place for the spacecraft to come down,” notes the Kap Plan. The team’s engineers have identified Nightingale as one of the few sites where boulders are not plentiful and there is an abundance of fine materials to collect. The results of the study of science and science advances provide guidelines for what researchers should expect.
Its touch-and-go sample acquisition mechanism (aka TAGSAM), a robotic arm with a giant romba-sized head attached to one end, will briefly touch the surface. It will release a rapid burst of nitrogen gas, kicking off dust and debris, which it will store by getting into the capsule. NASA hopes to retrieve about 60 grams of Bennu, which will be stored in a capsule that Osiris-Rex will post at home.
In 2023, the capsule is expected to return to Earth, where scientists will be able to investigate ancient materials stolen from space rock.
This site impresses the research team well as it will help answer more questions about the formation of asteroids that cannot be answered during the orbit of Osiris-Rex. Delagistina says researchers will be able to “test many of the hypotheses we’ve established using the data from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft.” The team will also be able to compare and contrast their findings with another sample-return mission with the same planet called Raigu. The Japanese space agency will return a sample to Earth from Ryugu on December 6.
As researchers have closely studied the returning material, in the laboratory, we find our place in the universe and 4.5. Let’s start learning a little bit more about how different the solar system was billions of years ago. The bottle’s “rubbish pile” rotated message will be smashed open, revealing its secrets. In general, we fix asteroids only when we think they will collide with Earth through alarmist headlines. But Bennu – and Rugu – teach us how the solar system grew like it is today. It’s not just pale, gray rocks.
“They have complex surfaces that are influenced by physiological processes that formed in the early solar system,” says Delagistina. “The more we know about them, the easier it is to understand our own history between stars and planets.”
