place rock fan can now gawp at NASA ’s first - ever sample distribution collected from an asteroid , as a rocky fragment from asteroid Bennu goes on video display at the National Museum of Natural History .
set up in 2016 , the Origins , Spectral Interpretation , Resource Identification , and Security - Regolith Explorer ( OSIRIS - male monarch ) probe successfully touched down in brief on asteroid Bennu in2020 , find aloose collection of debrisrather than a solid aerofoil . OSIRIS - REx bring back a sample to Earth inlate September , where it was taken to a specialised elbow room to be opened in a painstaking cognitive process that required month of practice .
The team has since hit a bit of a hitch , in that theycannot launch the lidof the sampling , meaning parts of it are still pin inside . However , when scientist first opened up the outer lid of the space capsule , they found"black dust and debris " coating the lid and the Touch - and - Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism ( TAGSAM ) – a mass of it . The team was also able-bodied to get at part of the material bear within the TAGSAM and amass it , without slay thetwo fastenersthat remain stuck .
One sample distribution of the asteroid work on display at the National Museum of Natural story on Friday . It ’s hoped that studying the asteroid , which we already know iscarbon - copious and hold water supply , we may find out about the potential part asteroids have played indelivering constitutional compoundsto Earth . information from the deputation could also be used in missions to deflect potentially hazardous asteroid .
Bennu itself , weedy and safe as it might look in a glass instance , is a potentially hazardous asteroid , with about aone in 1,750 chanceof hitting Earth by the yr 2300 . The most likely escort of impact , where the orbits are predicted to be closest , isSeptember 24 , 2182 . On this date , there is a one in 2,700 chance of shock concord to NASA , or around 0.037 per centum . Though those odds are still low , perhaps it ’s well that we assemble all the information we can about such asteroids just in case . Or bring it back piece by piece to lay in a museum , no longer a scourge to life on Earth .
