NASA’s first asteroid sample is the most original sample of its kind.
Now back on Earth, a sample from asteroid Bennu has already yielded surprising findings about the early solar system and where the asteroid might have come from.
After a seven-year journey to asteroid Bennu and back, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped its sample of rocks and debris collected from the primitive asteroid last year in the Utah desert.
It took a while to carefully remove the lid from the sample container, but even the first bits of asteroid from the lid were rich in carbon, an essential element for all life on Earth.
Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team have published their early findings on the Bennu sample.
They say they found organic compounds.
The sample also contained a surprising finding of sodium magnesium phosphate, which the spacecraft’s imaging team could not see through spectra on the asteroid.
OSIRIS-REx spent several years mapping the asteroid before a touch-and-go maneuver to collect a sample.
University of Central Florida astronomy and physics professor Humberto Campins served on the OSIRIS-REX science team during the OSIRIS-REx mission and said the team expects to find hydrated minerals, or minerals that react with water.
“But the magnesium and sodium phosphates are the result of a hydration process … indicating very complex fluid, reactions or chemical reactions in the Bennu parent,” said Campins, who was not involved in the new study. “We still don’t understand each other.” Studying it in detail will tell us a lot more about what was going on in the parent.”
The findings suggested that Bennu’s homeworld may have been one with water.
“The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds, on Bennu suggests a watery past for the asteroid,” said Dante Lauretta, co-author of the paper and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Tucson. “Bennu may once have been part of a wetter world. However, this hypothesis requires further investigation.”
Only the beginning surprises Benna
The latest findings are further evidence that the OSRIS-REx team picked the right asteroid to bring a piece back to Earth. According to NASA, the sample analysis team finds something new every week.
The discoveries from Bennu will soon be a global scientific initiative.
Dozens of labs in the U.S. and around the world are ready to receive portions of Bennu samples from NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Campins said he expects a lot more research and discovery from the sample now that it’s on Earth.
“It’s going to be a very interesting couple of years,” Campins said. “It’s starting to give us a different perspective, a different set of data to try to understand the most primitive material in the solar system, which is probably connected to the origin of water on Earth, probably connected to the origin of organic molecules on Earth. , which was the main motivation for this mission.”
Having a pristine sample of an asteroid formed 4.5 billion years ago, unaltered by Earth’s atmosphere or other contamination, will help scientists answer critical questions about how life on Earth originated.
Campins said it is possible that Benn will help answer the fundamental question of what was “the step between the most complex organic molecule and the first living cell.”
The spacecraft operates under a new name and a new mission.
The new OSIRIS-APEX mission will study asteroid Apophis when it flies past Earth in 2029. This encounter will be close enough for us to see the asteroid from Earth without the aid of a telescope.