September 19, 2024

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A piece of the asteroid Bennu will reach Earth on Sunday

A piece of the asteroid Bennu will reach Earth on Sunday

About three years after contact with the surface From the asteroid BennuNASA’s small OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is expected to return the sample it collected to Earth on Sunday afternoon (09/24).

The precious cargo is scheduled to be delivered to the Utah desert. It’s about to In the first American mission to bring a piece of an asteroid to Earth.

You can watch the sample delivery live here from 17:00 (Greek time) on Sunday:

Bennu is a rotating space rock, about half a kilometer across “Potentially most dangerous” For our planet, the asteroid. it is expected that It has changed little since the formation of the solar system Studying its characteristics can give us an idea about when planets were “born.” Asteroids like Bennu may contain water, ancient building blocks for life on Earth.

The capsule will enter the atmosphere, deploy a parachute, and land in a designated area of ​​the US Air Force training test range in Utah. It will then be transferred to a specially equipped area to avoid contamination and will be processed. It will then be transported to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The sample will be opened and parts of it will be given to different research institutions. it is expected that 400-1000 grams of material were collected.

After dropping its payload, the mission will change its name to OSIRIS-APEX, continuing on its way to another near-Earth asteroid, Apophis, which it is expected to reach in 2029.