NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid probe captured images through the launch of its return capsule final month, preserving the historic second for posterity.
These photos, which the area company launched on Tuesday (Oct. 3), present the return capsule deploying from OSIRIS-REx on the morning of Sept. 24 and heading towards Earth.
“The solar is seen on the high of the body, and a skinny ‘crescent Earth’ could be seen on the left fringe of the picture,” NASA officers wrote of the images, which mission crew members mixed right into a GIF.
Associated: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx lands samples of asteroid Bennu on Earth after historic 4-billion-mile journey
The 110-pound (50 kilograms) capsule’s time as a free flyer was transient: It touched down as deliberate below parachutes within the northern Utah desert on Sept. 24, about 4 hours after being jettisoned.
The tender touchdown capped NASA’s first-ever asteroid sample-return effort. The capsule’s valuable contents — dust and gravel that OSIRIS-REx snagged from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020 — rapidly made their solution to Johnson Area Middle (JSC) in Houston, the place the off-Earth materials is getting processed, curated and saved.
Mission crew members suppose OSIRIS-REx returned about 8.8 ounces (250 grams) of Bennu materials. That is only a pre-landing estimate, nonetheless; the precise quantity is being labored out now, and can possible be introduced throughout a webcast occasion on Oct. 11.
The OSIRIS-REx pattern is anticipated to be a treasure trove for scientists to review for many years to come back, NASA officers have stated. Scientists all over the world will scrutinize the asteroid bits for clues concerning the photo voltaic system’s early days and the function carbon-rich area rocks like Bennu might have performed in delivering life’s constructing blocks to Earth way back, amongst different strains of inquiry.
