225
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Scientists just opened the lid to NASA’s asteroid sample canister::"There is some black dust-like material that's visible. We're hoping that's from Bennu."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 20 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, has waited nearly 20 years to get his hands on pristine specimens from an asteroid, which he says is a key to unlocking answers to mysteries about the origin of life on Earth.

But there's little question the dust grains visible immediately after scientists opened the lid to the canister are from asteroid Bennu, where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured rocks during a touch-and-go landing in 2020.

The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) mothership released the capsule to plunge into the atmosphere while it fired its thrusters to maneuver on a trajectory to head back into the Solar System for an extended mission to visit another asteroid.

It then traveled to a specially built super-clean curation facility at the space center, which is also home to the collection of Moon rocks brought back on NASA's Apollo missions more than 50 years ago.

That will require the lab team in Houston to remove the TAGSAM sampling mechanism from its restraint inside the canister, which protected it for the journey back to Earth like a nested doll.

The real treasure is inside TAGSAM, which we're not going to get access to until probably late next week, and that is going to be a very deliberative process to figure out what is the nature of that collection, and how do we fairly distribute it to our international partners, to the science team for OSIRIS-REx, and also preserve the long-term integrity for future researchers."


The original article contains 886 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
225 points (98.7% liked)

Technology

59623 readers
1150 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS