As NASA approaches the final stages of its seven-year-long OSIRIS-REx mission, the world waits eagerly for the sample of asteroid Bennu to return to Earth. NASA’s efforts are a crucial stride towards comprehending and perhaps averting a potentially catastrophic event—a collision of Bennu with Earth. This looming threat led to the deployment of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to Bennu in 2016.
First identified in 1999, Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid, has been in NASA’s sights for quite some time. It’s a behemoth about a third of a mile wide, comparable in size to New York’s Empire State Building. If it collides with Earth, experts say the impact could unleash energy equivalent to 22 atomic bombs.
After a significant milestone in October 2020, when OSIRIS-REx successfully collected a sample weighing roughly 250 grams, the largest ever extracted from space, as per Earth.com.
This Sunday, the spacecraft will release a mini-fridge-sized capsule, carrying the sample, into Earth’s atmosphere. It will speed towards Earth at an astonishing 28,000 mph, withstand temperatures twice that of lava, and eventually parachute into Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert.
The importance of this mission is not just about averting disaster. The sample from Bennu will also provide scientists with a glimpse into the processes that led to the formation of our solar system around 4.5 billion years ago.
Nicola Fox, an associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, stated that the material might potentially shed light on the early solar system’s creation and even how life on Earth could have originated, Earth.com reported.
The asteroid was named Bennu in 2013 by a nine-year-old North Carolina resident, following his victory in a naming competition. He derived the name from an ancient Egyptian deity.
Now, why should you not worry?
NASA has calculated the odds of Bennu crashing into Earth to be 1 in 2700, with the most critical time frame being September 24, 2182.
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Updated: 20 Sep 2023, 09:45 AM IST