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4th Dimensional
Posted 1 year ago

NASA's First Asteroid Sample Has Landed, Now Secure In Clean Room
The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Nitrogen is a gas that doesn't interact with most other chemicals, and a continuous flow of it into the sample container inside the capsule will keep out earthly contaminants to leave the sample pure for scientific analyses.

"Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team on a picture-perfect mission - the first American asteroid sample return in history - which will deepen our understanding of the origin of our solar system and its formation. Not to mention, Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid, and what we learn from the sample will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could come our way," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

"With OSIRIS-REx, Psyche launch in a couple of weeks, DART's one year anniversary, and Lucy's first asteroid approach in November, Asteroid Autumn is in full swing. These missions prove once again that NASA does big things. Things that inspire us and unite us. Things that show nothing is beyond our reach when we work together."

Today's delivery of an asteroid sample - a first for the U.S. - went according to plan thanks to the massive effort of hundreds of people who remotely directed the spacecraft's journey since it launched on Sept. 8, 2016.

Curation for OSIRIS-REx, including processing the sample when it arrives on Earth, will take place at NASA Johnson.

International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission.

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4th Dimensional
Posted 1 year ago

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