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Human beings want to know one thing today: how did life come about on Earth? But first we have to find out where all the water on this planet came from. There is a lot of water on Earth and we don’t know how it got here. You can’t find out by studying the surface of the Earth, because here everything has melted, frozen, mixed. So we have to search somewhere in space. And among the few objects that have remained unchanged for about 4 billion years, when our planet formed, would be asteroids, Adrian Șonka from the Bucharest Astronomical Observatory explained to Digi24.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex shuttle was able to sample the asteroid Bennu this week. It has been a long way to go and it will still take time for the evidence to reach Earth, but the researchers hope the data will help them learn more about the solar system and the emergence of life on our planet.
An asteroid in pieces stuck together
The asteroid targeted by NASA had one very important quality: it was approaching Earth. It wasn’t a very, very distant asteroid, and I was able to get to it quite quickly. Also, it seemed that it is not, in fact, a rock, as we imagine asteroids to be, but is, in fact, composed of many pieces of other asteroids that stuck together, soldering over time. And then if we take matter from it, we can study various kinds of asteroids and we can see what kind of water there is, because it also contains water, what kind of rocks they are, and how they evolved over time. time, said Adrian Șonka.
We were basically able to easily reach it and NASA managed to get a few grams of dust off its surface a few days ago. It all happened very far, 300 million kilometers away, because the asteroid is approaching us, but now it is very far away. It is not until March that the spacecraft with that collected material will return to Earth.
What was our solar system doing about 4 billion years ago?
So far we have not been able to collect dust from many asteroids. It has only happened once before, in 2005.
The dust that reaches the Earth, due to meteorites, is already altered by the atmosphere and the places where it falls. Therefore, through samples taken directly from the surface of the asteroid Bennu, in space, we will discover a lot about what happened to that asteroid and what the Solar System was doing about 4 billion years ago, says Adrian. Șonka.
We currently have two probes that directly sampled asteroids, one sent by the Japanese and the other sent by NASA.
How the probe landed on a moving asteroid
The Osiris-Rex spacecraft, sent by NASA, arrived at the asteroid in 2018. It took him about two years to reach his destination and from then until now he had to study, to find a very good place to land, because he only had two chances to reach the surface.
Or, the asteroid was studied, mapped and only now managed to get close, on a path that lasted about four hours. Basically, the probe circled the asteroid for two years and after mapping the entire surface, a smooth spot was found. On its surface there were many rocks, which appear to be altered by many processes, but the landing was successful.
When will we have the expected answers?
It takes years not only to get the probe to the asteroid, but also to return to Earth, where we will practically retrieve it from the air. So it will be years before we discover the answers it brings.
In 2005 dozens of dust particles were introduced, barely visible. They were studied for several years by laboratories around the world until something precise was determined about them. So we are waiting for the responses from the asteroid Bennu only in a few years, if the Osiris spacecraft makes it home safely, with the samples taken.
Read also: The probe that landed on the asteroid Bennu collected so many rocks that it began to escape. NASA: “I was a victim of my own success”
