The OSIRIS-REx mission will return samples from the asteroid Bennu that could rewrite our solar system's history
What would it be like to hold a piece of outer space in your hand? Some lucky scientists will find out soon when NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns from its seven-year mission. The probe will drop off a canister holding about a cup of pebbles and dust from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
The samples will reveal the state of the solar system when it was first forming, including which amino acids and other chemical compounds important for biology were present. “The ‘O’ in ‘OSIRIS-REx’ is really for the origin of life,” says Dante S. Lauretta of the University of Arizona, the mission's principal investigator. “We want to understand the role that these carbon-rich asteroids played in delivering the precursors of life to Earth.
In October 2020 the spacecraft made a close approach to the asteroid, briefly touching the surface with its Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism , a robotic arm that fired a burst of nitrogen gas to stir up dust and rock, which it then funneled into its collector head. “It looks like an air filter, except we brought the air,” Lauretta says. Photographs taken during the collection process suggest the mission scooped up plenty of material.
Even the first scientific findings should significantly expand our knowledge of asteroids like Bennu. Ryan's team will measure how much heat the material conducts, how much space there is between particles in each grain, and how strong the force is that holds the pieces together.
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