Asteroid Bennu. Photo: Wikipedia.org.
Today, a capsule with soil samples collected from the asteroid Bennu landed in the American state of Utah. The capsule was dropped earlier by the American spacecraft OSIRIS-Rex.
According to NASA, the capsule, which contains approximately 250 grams of soil, landed at 17:55 Moscow time in the desert in Utah, 122 km from the city of Salt -Lake City.
The capsule was dropped from an altitude of approximately 102 thousand km. When it entered the Earth's atmosphere, it released a parachute.
The capsule will now be sent for study to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is expected that a report on what was found in the samples will be presented on October 11.
Recall that the OSIRIS-Rex apparatus was launched in 2016. It reached the asteroid Bennu in December 2018, and soil was sampled from the asteroid's surface using a robotic arm in October 2020.
These samples should shed light on the formation of the solar system, which occurred 4.5 billion years ago. years ago. It is believed that the surface of the asteroid Bennu could have retained matter since the birth of the Solar System.