NASA was forced to halt work on the asteroid samples that crashed into Earth this week after scientists spotted mysterious black dust inside the canister.
The samples were collected from Bennu’s surface in 2020 as part of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission and landed in the Utah desert on Sunday.
Scientists today broke open the canister, which contained approximately 350 grams of debris, and found unidentified elements on the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on top of the avionics deck.
An image taken by scientists shows that the inside of the silver lid is smeared with black elements.
NASA said the dust will undergo rapid analysis to determine if it is material from the asteroid Bennu.
Scientists today broke open the canister and found unidentified elements on the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on top of the avionics deck
“The TAGSAM, which contains the majority of the sample, will be gently opened in the coming weeks,” NASA said.
The residue on the avionics deck found Tuesday was likely the result of problems during the collection, which NASA says were ultimately resolved, allowing safe transfer of the sample.
But scientists are working to confirm the theory.
OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta documented the photo of the sample canister after the lid was successfully removed, as part of his tasks set out in the curation process.
Data collected during the OSIRIS-REx mission will also help scientists better understand asteroids that could impact Earth and inform future asteroid deflection efforts.
NASA said the dust will undergo rapid analysis to determine if it is material from the asteroid Bennu
The samples were collected from Bennu’s surface in 2020 as part of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission and recently landed in the Utah desert on Sunday.
In this image from a NASA video, technicians in a clean room examine the sample return capsule of NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission after it landed
To investigate these questions, scientists must carefully preserve, protect and handle the asteroid samples, which will be examined and stored at a new curation facility operated by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division, or ARES, at the Johnson Space Center in Texas.
Osiris-Rex, the mothership, blasted off on the $1 billion mission in 2016.
He reached Bennu two years later and picked up debris from the small, round space rock in 2020 using a long-handled vacuum cleaner.
When it returned, the spacecraft had traveled four billion miles.
The capsule hit the atmosphere at a speed of 27,650 miles per hour (mph) after being released from the spacecraft at 6:42 a.m. ET.
But it was crucial that the sample remained uncontaminated by anything from Earth, and the parachute had slowed it to a stately speed of 11 miles per hour after deploying at 20,000 feet.
NASA’s recovery efforts in Utah include helicopters and a temporary cleanroom at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range.
The Osiris-Rex spacecraft delivered the bowl-shaped container of debris from the Bennu asteroid into orbit on Sunday morning before heading off to its next target.
The pebbles and dust delivered Sunday represent the largest amount from behind the moon.
The samples are preserved building blocks from the beginning of our solar system and will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed, providing “an extraordinary glimpse” into 4.5 billion years ago, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said .
Bennu currently orbits the sun, 50 million miles (81 million kilometers) from Earth, and has a diameter of about a third of a mile (half a kilometer), about the size of the Empire State Building.
The name Bennu was chosen from more than eight thousand entries from students from dozens of countries around the world who entered the name ‘Name that Asteroid!’ 2012 competition.
A helicopter will deliver a space capsule containing NASA’s first asteroid samples on Sunday
Third-grader Michael Puzio from North Carolina suggested the winning name, referencing an ancient Egyptian mythological bird.
The asteroid is shaped like a spinning top and is believed to be the broken fragment of a much larger space rock.
During its two-year investigation, Osiris-Rex discovered that Bennu was a pile of rubble full of boulders and craters.
The surface was so loose that the spacecraft’s vacuum arm sank half a meter into the asteroid, sucking in more material than expected and causing the lid to jam.
But these close-up observations could prove useful late into the next century.
Bennu is considered the most dangerous rock in the solar system because its intersecting orbit with Earth gives it the greatest chance of hitting the planet of any known space object.
It is expected to come dangerously close to Earth in September 2182 – exactly 159 years after Sunday’s scientific triumph.
The data collected by Osiris-Rex will help in any asteroid deflection attempt, lead scientist Dante Lauretta said.
Osiris-Rex is already chasing the asteroid Apophis and will reach it in 2029.