(BBC News) Dusty samples from the “most dangerous known rock in the Solar System” have been brought to Earth.
U.S. space agency NASA landed the materials in a capsule that came down in the West Desert of Utah state.
The samples had been scooped up from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020 by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft.
NASA wants to learn more about the mountainous object, not least because it has an outside chance of hitting our planet in the next 300 years.
But more than this, the samples are likely to provide fresh insights into the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago and possibly even how life got started on our world.
There was jubilation when the Osiris-Rex team caught sight of their capsule on long-range cameras.
Touchdown on desert land belonging to the Department of Defense was confirmed by NASA at 10:52 local time (14:52 GMT).
The car-tire-sized container had come screaming into the atmosphere over the western U.S. at more than 12 km/second. A heatshield and parachutes slowed its descent and dropped it gently on to restricted ground.
Asked how the rescue mission went, some of the workers told BBC News’ science team that it was “awesome.”
Osiris-Rex principal investigator Dante Lauretta said his first reaction on seeing the capsule floating down on its parachute was to “cry like a baby.”
Scientists are eager to get their hands on the precious cargo, which pre-landing estimates put at some 250 grams.
That might not sound like very much — the weight of an adult hamster, as one scientist described it — but for the types of tests the NASA teams want to do, it is more than ample.
“Some of our instruments literally look at the atoms that make up the crystals inside these rocks,” Professor Lauretta explained.
“When you’re working at that scale, a single stone is an infinite landscape to explore. We’ll be working on these materials for decades and decades into the future.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66893661
