WASHINGTON, September 24 A capsule with soil from the asteroid Bennu, visited by the OSIRIS-REx probe, landed at the test site in the US state of Utah, said NASA, which is broadcasting live.
“»Touch, a journey of millions of miles has officially ended!» — the agency said.
The capsule with the soil touched the surface of the Earth at 10:52 U.S. East Coast time (17:52 Moscow time). The department called the completion of the OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu “a big day in history.” Presumably, the capsule may contain from 60 to 2000 grams of samples collected on the surface of the asteroid.
Now the capsule has to be found, removed from the spacecraft and handed over to experts who will study its contents. On Monday, the received materials will be delivered to the Johnson Space Center in Texas for study. The demonstration of the resulting samples may take place in October.
Asteroid Bennu, previously known as 1999 RQ36, was discovered in 1999. It is considered a near-Earth asteroid and approaches the planet every six years: its average orbital distance from the Sun is about 168 million kilometers. For comparison: the average orbital distance of the Earth from the Sun is about 150 million kilometers. According to NASA, Bennu was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest space body orbited by a man-made spacecraft. Scientists believe Bennu may have broken off from a larger carbon-rich asteroid about two billion years ago. Scientists consider the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to be the place of its formation.
The OSIRIS-REx probe went to the asteroid Bennu in September 2016 and entered its orbit in December 2018. The next two years were spent remotely studying the asteroid and preparing for the soil extraction operation, which was successfully carried out in October 2020. The return of the probe to Earth began in the spring of 2022. The capsule was returned normally, it landed at the intended location at the Pentagon training ground near Salt Lake City in Utah.