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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is ready to touch the surface of the asteroid Bennu – Photo: NASA
According to CNN, this landmark NASA mission is called the “touch-and-go” (Touch-and-Go) collection event. The ship is about the size of a truck and is approaching a location on the asteroid Bennu, also known as Nightingale.
Then a robotic arm came up and collected between 60 grams and 2 kilograms of specimen on the surface of Bennu and then continued its journey back to Earth. The sample is expected to be shipped back in 2023.
Asteroids roughly the age of the Solar System have skimmed the Earth many times, which NASA considers to have a relatively high probability of collision, which could cause catastrophe to humanity in the 22nd century. The destructive power of the asteroid is tens of thousands of atomic bombs.
On 8-10, the NASA team announced in the magazine. Science and scientific advances They observed that the material is likely carbonite, along with organic compounds.
According to NASA, this evidence supports the hypothesis that life on Earth is made up of asteroids and comets. Therefore, this time the mission of NASA is not only to study a defense plan with “enemy number 1”, but also to hope to open up discoveries about the origin of life.
“This is an incredible feat. A piece of primitive rock that has seen the entire history of the Solar System is now ready to go home,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s deputy director of science missions. concentration.
The OSIRIS-REx mission began in September 2016. At the time of the approach, Bennu was more than 300 million kilometers from Earth. If the sample meets the volume requirement, the ship is expected to turn around in March 2021, instead they will do another collection in January 2021 if necessary.
