The OSIRIS-REx Mission, a $1 billion endeavor by NASA, continues to face “setbacks“, necessitating the development of new methods to safely retrieve samples from an asteroid believed to contain “seeds of life”.
Carefully collecting samples while avoiding even the smallest “contaminants” from Earth’s environment is crucial for scientists to obtain accurate answers about the mysteries surrounding the early stages of the Solar System and the emergence of life within it.
The sample collection box from asteroid Bennu being processed by NASA scientists – (Photo: NASA).
According to the latest announcement from NASA, the samples actually contain water and carbon, the “backbone” of life. This finding comes from the analysis of dust and rock fragments collected from the exterior and beneath the lid of the container.
As reported by Space.com, the “treasure box” known as TAGSAM from asteroid Bennu has still not been properly opened one month after it landed on Earth, because Nasa scientists… cannot open it.
“After several attempts to disassemble it, the team discovered that two out of the 35 pins on the TAGSAM head could not be removed with the approved tools,” NASA stated.
Any rough intervention risks damaging the entire sample from this $1 billion mission. Therefore, the OSIRIS-REx team is striving to develop new methods to extract material while ensuring that the sample remains safe and pristine.
Fortunately, in the accessible exterior section, scientists have collected 70.3 grams of material from Bennu. Initial analyses indicate that these samples are suitable for study.
The entire box could hold up to 250 grams of Bennu dust and rock, a desirable amount of material that will be shared with various space agencies and research groups worldwide for collaborative analysis.
Previous analyses by NASA have indicated that Bennu, a “fossil” from the dawn of the Solar System, represents asteroids that brought water and the seeds of life to early Earth.
Therefore, they are confident that these dust and rock samples may contain those ancient “building blocks of life”, which could provide insights into how Earth’s first organisms were conceived, and also shed light on our own extraterrestrial origins.
