Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, video producer and health blogger. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech national TV station. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Prague's Charles University. She is passionate about nutrition, meditation and psychology, and sustainability.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission unleashed an unexpected explosion when it touched down on asteroid Bennu in October 2020 to collect a precious sample to carry home to Earth.
"But as we were bringing back the images after the event, we were stunned," he continued."We saw a giant wall of debris flying away from the sample side. For spacecraft operators, it was really frightening." That's a surprisingly large scar; scientists had expected to scoop out a bit about as wide as the sample collector itself, 12 inches ."But we sunk in," Lauretta said."There clearly was no resistance whatsoever. The surface was soft and flowed away like a fluid."
A second study, based on measurements of forces exerted on the probe during the impact, confirmed those numbers. Moreover, scientists assume that many asteroids sport a similar"rubble pile" structure: essentially conglomerations of rock, gravel and dirt held together by weak gravitational forces. The sampling experiment at Bennu shows that it's almost impossible to predict how such a rubble pile might respond to an impact.
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