NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission brings asteroid samples again to Earth

Subsequent yr, NASA plans to scoop up a small batch of filth from an asteroid named Bennu, situated thousands and thousands of miles from Earth — and now the company is aware of which a part of the house rock it’s going to steal from. Right now, the house company introduced that one among its spacecraft will try and seize some particles from a 20-meter-wide crater, referred to as Nightingale, on the asteroid.

Engineers picked the Nightingale website from 4 ultimate candidate spots on Bennu, arguing it could possibly be the perfect place to search out natural materials and water on the asteroid that will hail from the earliest days of the Photo voltaic System. “This one actually got here out on prime, due to the scientific worth,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator of the asteroid sampling mission, mentioned throughout a press convention asserting the choice. Nonetheless, focusing on the crater isn’t with out threat. The realm is surrounded by a big wall of rocks, which might make it tough to seize a pattern. However in the end, Lauretta mentioned the world might have what they’re on the lookout for.