“Work for life”. Fragments of asteroid Bennu will be studied in Great Britain
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The Natural History Museum in London, as well as the Open University, Manchester University and Oxford University, will conduct a series of tests and experiments with a piece of the asteroid that was given to scientists by the American space agency NASA.
This is reported by the BBC.
Great Britain was given 100 milligrams of rock – these are tiny pieces of stones and dust. The diameter of the largest fragments is less than 2 millimeters, and some of the smallest are barely visible to the naked eye.
Professor Sarah Russell of the Natural History Museum called the asteroid piece “a small but significant donation from the US space agency”.
| Photo: Natural History Museum |
“We will study this material bit by bit. It may be the work of a lifetime.” says Sarah Russell, who heads the planetary materials group at the museum.
The Natural History Museum team works with X-ray diffraction techniques that help determine the types of minerals and their ratios in a rock.
We will remind you that earlier we wrote that preliminary analyzes carried out by NASA proved that the Bennu rock contains a lot of carbon and water-containing minerals.
“The OSIRIS-REx sample is the largest carbon-rich sample of an asteroid ever delivered to Earth. It will help scientists explore the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
What is known about asteroid Bennu?
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| Photo: NASA |
Earlier, NASA called asteroid Bennu the most dangerous object in the solar system, because it has a chance to collide with our planet in the next 300 years.
The OSIRIS-REx mission was launched in September 2016 to drop a capsule containing rock and dust samples from the asteroid Bennu to Earth.
The spacecraft arrived at the 500-meter asteroid in December 2018. Astronomers have been studying its surface from orbit with the probe for 22 months, looking for the right spot to land and take a sample.
In October 2020, they began collecting material and found that the surface of the asteroid is surprisingly porous, so the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was able to dive deep into it. Already in May 2021, the probe went to Earth with asteroid samples.
On September 24, 2023, the return capsule landed in the northern Utah desert. Scientists still don’t know the exact weight of material brought home by OSIRIS-REx. According to preliminary estimates, it can be about 250 grams.
Scientists around the world will carefully study the composition of asteroid Bennu. Its fragment may help expand people’s understanding of the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.
Read also: James Webb’s telescope discovered planet-like objects in the Orion constellation
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