Image: NASA/Handout via Reuters
Faizel Patel – 10/05/2021
A NASA spacecraft, which scientists believe has collected samples from an asteroid, began its two-year journey back to Earth
Reuters report that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is attempting to complete a mission to visit Bennu, a skyscraper-sized asteroid some 320 million km from Earth, survey the surface, collect samples and deliver them back to Earth.
Staff celebrated at the OSIRIS-REx control room in Colorado as the space vehicle pushed away from the asteroid, whose acorn-shaped body formed in the early days of our solar system.
OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu in 2018.
Dante Lauretta, the OSIRIS-REx mission’s principal investigator in 2018 said the spacecraft found traces of hydrogen and oxygen molecules – part of the recipe for water and thus the potential for life – embedded in the asteroid’s rocky surface.
The trip back to Earth is expected to take about two years.
NASA says samples will be distributed to research laboratories worldwide, but 75% of the samples will be preserved at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for future generations to study with technologies not yet created.
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