Four months after NASA's capsule landed in Utah, scientists open a metal box containing dust from the asteroid Bennu.

Four months after NASA's capsule containing 250 grams of rocks from the asteroid Bennu landed in the desert of the American state of Utah, which was collected by the Osiris-Rex mission, those responsible for the Johnson Space Center in Houston were able to open… A type of metal box with remaining dust samples From the asteroid.

“It's open! It's open!” NASA's Planetary Science Division said in a post On the social network X.

It's open! It's open! And ready for its proximity. After successfully removing two final installers on January 10, members were able to… @astronomical materials The team filmed #osirisrex A sample of an asteroid with special technology to obtain ultra-resolution images. https://t.co/bBrfFT3FoR pic.twitter.com/NTGMVFZCP3

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) January 19, 2024

The Houston scientists' joy was no surprise. They had been struggling for months to open the metal box containing dust from the 4.6 billion-year-old asteroid, which was collected in 2020. But they were finally able to remove it. Two of the 35 stabilizers are missing The head of the probe's robotic arm (touch-and-go sample acquisition mechanism) or TAGSAM, which was blocking access to the interior of the box.

“The impossible has become possible.” A NASA capsule containing asteroid samples has already reached Earth

“They were all excited to see the treasure that Osiris-Rex still holds,” Ellen Stansbury, head of the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Division (ARES) at the Johnson Space Center, revealed after the team opened. Fund and sampling. Nicole Luming, lead mission coordinator in the same division, praised the “incredible job of removing the stabilizers from TAGSAM's head.”

Bennu dust, brought by Osiris Rex, promises to provide information about its formation 4,500 million years ago. It could help provide answers about the origin of life, one of humanity's biggest questions Experts are trying to explain this.

NASA chose Bennu because it is rich in organic molecules, as science wanted to know what the Earth is like I was able to obtain organic molecules and water in abundance, Two main components of life. “Asteroid samples (like this) tell us about all the ingredients needed to create a planet like Earth,” Ashley King of the Natural History Museum in London said last year.

A NASA capsule carrying samples from an asteroid returns to Earth on Sunday

“Potentially dangerous” is how the asteroid Bennu, discovered in 1999, is classified The far-fetched hypothesis that 1 in 1750 collided with Earth by 2300..

Osiris-Rex Project It was submitted in 2004 to NASA by a group of scientistsBut because it presented flaws they ended up returning it. Later, an improved version was delivered and approved in 2007. But the team's mission ended up being derailed by the budget.

In 2011, NASA took over the capsule project and the group improved it until 2016, the year it left the space agency's headquarters in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The asteroid was reached in 2018.